dollar pieces; and not quite the same amount into ten-dollar coins.[1] This coinage raised the price of dust from twelve to sixteen dollars an ounce, and caused a great saving to the territory. Being thrown into circulation, and quickly followed by an abundance of money from California, the intended check on the avarice of the merchants was effected.[2] The Oregon Exchange coinage went by the name 'beaver money,' and was eventually all called in by the United States mint in San Francisco, a premium being paid upon it, as it was of greater value than the denominations on the coins indicated.[3]
I have said that the effect of the gold discovery was to change the habits of the people. Where all
- ↑ The ten-dollar pieces differed from the fives by having over the beaver only the letters 'K. M. T. R. C. S.' underneath which were seven stars. Be-
Ten Dollars.
Five Dollars.neath the beaver was 'O. T., 1849.' On the reverse was 'Oregon Exchange Company' around the margin, and '10 D. 20 G. Native Gold' with 'Ten D.' in the centre. Thornton's Or. Relics, MS., 5.
- ↑ Or. Archives, MS., 192–5; Buck's Enterprises, MS., 9–10. Rector says: 'I afterward learned that Kilborne took the rolling-mill to Umpqua. John G. Campbell had the dies the last I knew of them. He promised to destroy them;' to which J. Henry Brown adds that they were placed in the custody of the secretary of state, together with a $10 piece, and that he had made several impressions of the dies in block tin. A set of these impressions was presented to me in 1878 by Mr Brown, and is in my collection.
- ↑ Or. Archives, MS., 191, 196. Other mention of the 'beaver money' is made in Or. Pioneer Asso. Trans., 1875, 72, and Portland Oregonian, Dec. 8, 1866.
