Collared Yales Curios

Yesterday I located this little story about A. Hyatt Verrill. This is not the first rumour of theft by AHV. He was in the 1930s, 'sacked' by Mr. Heye of the Museum of the American Indian, for reportedly selling artifacts from his Panama digs. Someday someone should write a biography of AHV since so much appears to be missing from his three autobiographies!!!/drf

Collared Yale’s Curios.

Albert Hyatt Verrill Looted the Famous Peabody Museum.

He Sold His Spoils To Museums And Relic Hunters All Over The World.

From: Sunday Herald, February 2, 1896.

A Professor’s Son Whose Actions Have Created a Big Sensation in the Elm City.—Articles Valued at Thousands of Dollars Taken by Young Verrill Who When Cornered Acknowledged His Guilt.—Property Returned.

IT HAS BEEN A long time since any­thing has happened in New Haven that created so much of a sensation as the revelations during the past week of the fact that the Peabody museum, one of Yale’s world famous institutions had been robbed for years by Albert H. Verrill, the eldest son of Addison E. Verrill, M. A., professor of zoology and curator of the zoological collection at the museum.

Not even the “burning words” of Mrs. Poteat whom she asserted a short time ago that she “would as soon send her son to hell us to Yale,” aroused such a stir as did the knowledge of the robberies that young Verrill confessed he was guilty of. And despite the acknowledgment of the accused who got away with thousands of dollars worth of valuable articles, and the chain of evidence woven about him by the detec­tives who were at work on the case, the offender instead of being brought to justice is allowed to walk the streets unmolested, as free to do as he pleases as ever he was.

For about two years the robberies have been going on and while it was a fact that many articles of value, such as choice pieces of pottery, arrow heads and rare specimens of minerals were missed from time to time by Othniel C. Marsh, Ph. D., L. L. D. and Prof. Verrill, neither of them could account for the disappearances nor secure any trace of the thief. Not until about a month ago was the matter reported to the police authorities and immediately Detectives Cowles and Poronto were detailed to make an investigation and bring the guilty party to justice.

The officers went diligently at work and soon learned that the missing ar­ticles were evidently taken from the cases in the museum by some one who had a key, for there was no evidence that showed the cases had been broken into or pried open. Suspicion eventu­ally fell on young Verrill who enjoyed the freedom of the museum on account of his father’s position and he was taken before his parent and a member of the faculty and questioned. He denied all knowledge of the thefts and appeared to be as innocent as the child unborn.

But the detectives were only allowing him all the rope he wanted. They had secured sufficient evidence and concluded to let him go as far as he would with his denials. When he was con­fronted with the fact that the officer found a quantity of the almost priceless curios in a room at his home at 19 Carmel Street, New Haven, he broke down and confessed the whole business. He was willing to do almost anything in order to get out of the trouble and gave the officers and others interested the addresses of the many different dealers in curios about the country and abroad to whom he had been sending the stolen articles. Immediately the faculty set about to recover the lost property and it is stated that so far about £10,000 worth has been discovered and returned to the looted museum.

The young man’s father and some of his friends have been doing all in their power to straighten the matter out and with the police and others endeavored to keep the affair from gaining any publicity. It leaked out, however, and has been the talk of every one in the Elm city since it became generally known.

Young Verrill, who is about twenty-five years old, resides with his wife and children in a neatly furnished home at 19 Carmel Street and heretofore he has always borne a good reputation. In the city directory he is scheduled as “A Hyatt Verrill, draughtsman and designer,” instead of “Albert H. Verrill, taxidermist,” as it was at one time. Some time ago he was an assistant to his father who resides in an elegantly furnished home at 86 Whalley Avenue. After he married Miss McCarthy, daughter of the well known wholesale liquor dealer, of New Haven, a few years ago, there was some little trouble between him and parent and he left the museum and started in business as a taxidermist in a room at 102 Orange street. The sensation and talk his marriage created soon died away and he again won favor with his father who recognized his son’s excellent work and later sent him all over the world in the interest of the work he had been following.

Verrill had access to all parts of the museum in which his father is professor, and realizing that he could make considerable money on some of the curios in the place began to purloin them. Later on some of his trips abroad he succeeded, so it is stated, in disposing of many of the relics and also got rid of many through an advertisement he had in a New York paper. He was cute enough, too, in replacing many of the articles he took with cheaper imitations and thereby prevented any suspicion from arising for a long time. The substitutes were the work of his own hands and easily passed the uncritical eyes of the students and visitors. Although the college authorities tried in every way to catch the thief when they began to miss the relics they failed and never suspected young Verrill who was fully aware of that fact as they were.

He seldom appeared to have an abundance of money whether he real­ized very extensively or not on the sale of the articles he stole, and so far as is known was not given to gaming or riotous living of any description. He mingled with the best society and al­ways seemed to be well thought of. It is stated that his father has made good the losses the museum suffered from his actions and that is one of the reasons why young Verrill has not been arrested.

Every one connected with the affair is reticent about saying anything. The police authorities, while they admit that there were robberies going on at the museum for a long time, decline to dis­cuss the matter and have taken no steps towards arresting young Verrill be­cause no compaint has been made against him.

Prof. Marsh, who regrets that the story got out, asserts that the losses did not exceed $1,000, while the young man’s father declares they were not over $100 worth. Others are of the opinion that something like $10,000 worth of the curios were taken and sold to different museums and curio hunters throughout the world.

Verrill seems repentant since he made a clean breast of the whole busi­ness as one in his position could be. He regrets the step he took and is sorry he brought such disgrace upon his family. He avoids discussing the matter with newspaper men and has been keeping out of their reach since the discovery was made. His young wife is prostrated with grief over the un­pleasant notoriety her husband has gained and cannot believe him guilty of anything wrong. Prof. Verrill is also very much distressed over his boy’s ac­tions and declares the Peabody museum will not lose a cent by what has hap­pened.

The Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill

 This story is very similar, but with different emphasis, to a chapter in Verrill's autobiography, 'Never a Dull Moment'./drf

The Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill

By A. Hyatt Verrill

From ‘Trail and Saddle’, a ‘Department of True Stories’ in Double Action Western, March 1953; researched by Alan Schenker, digitized by Doug Frizzle, May 2012.

WHEN, Colonel Cody started his original Wild West Show he was in partnership with Dr. William Carver, the famous rifle shot. Carver, whose parents had been killed in an Indian raid, had been taken captive and reared by the Sioux. With the signing of the peace treaty, he had been taken from the Indians and had been adopted by a dentist who taught the young man his trade. He had married a New Haven, Connecticut, woman and lived only a couple of blocks from my home. His son, Billy, and, I were great chums. His father would entertain us by the hour with stories of his life among the Sioux.

He was a most picturesque figure; over six feet tall and heavily built. He was a fine looking man with yellow hair falling to his shoulders and with a sweeping blonde mustache. He invariably wore a broad-brimmed, low-crowned sombrero and a heavily-beaded vest; when the show was in town he donned a suit of fringed buckskin and knee-high boots. He always rode a striking bay-and-white pinto with ornate silver-decorated saddle and bridle and long saddle-bag flaps of jaguar skin, dashing at a full gallop through the city streets between his office and his home.

Of course, Billy and I had the run of the show when it was in town and we became very friendly with Buffalo Bill Cody. At that time, many famous Indian warriors and chiefs were with the show. Among them was Shot-in-the-Eye, Gray Wolf, Gall, Spotted Tail, Crazy Horse, Yellow Elk, Tall Man and others, all living with their families in their tepees in the field on the outskirts of the city; there were the scouts, cowboys and other members of the Wild West Show.

In those days, the cow punchers and plainsmen bore little resemblance to those of today. All wore their hair hanging to their shoulders; all wore flat-brimmed, low-crooned sombreros; and the majority wore fringed-buckskin coats with vests of beaded buckskin or "pinto'' calfskin.

Although some wore buckskin pants, most of them preferred corduroys tucked into high, soft leather-topped boots; and when mounted, they wore chaps that were seatless leather pants with fringe down the seams. Yet, the artists who illustrate western stories laid in the sixties and seventies, draw punchers with high-crowned Stetsons, short hair, fancy shirts, levis and fancy-stitched, high-heeled boots mounted on saddles with steel horns and bucking rolls, and wearing bat-wing chaps, although none of these were in use until well into the eighties.

Invariably, Dr. Carver "stole" the show, for he was probably the most expert rifle shot who ever lived. One of his stunts was to throw a brick into the air, break it with a shot from his rifle and smash three of the fragments before they fell to the ground. It was his skill with the rifle that aroused Cody's jealousy, for he was a poor shot. The result was that the partnership was dissolved; Buffalo Bill taking over the show while Carver went on tour giving exhibitions of marksmanship. On one occasion, he made a heavy wager that he could score six thousand hits, on objects thrown into the air, in the space of six days. The stunt took place in the old skating-rinks on Chapel Street in New Haven; Billy and I helped cool, clean and reload the six rifles Carver used. At first, lumps of coal were thrown into the air; but the fine dust, as the bullets smashed them was unbearable—so small blocks of wood about two inches square were substituted. He won the wager easily, often making two (and sometimes three) hits on a block and finishing the score nearly twelve-hours before his time expired.

It was his phenomenal skill with a rifle that so impressed me, that I determined to become an expert myself. I never even approached Carver in rifle-shooting; but with his help, I did become sufficiently expert to break a brick, and one of its fragments; to hit a quarter, or even a dime in the air— while, my greatest feat was to snap a .22 cartridge into the air and explode it with a shot from my rifle.

Little did I dream, when with Billy Carver I met Colonel Cody and the Indians, scouts and punchers of the Wild West Show, that years later I would take a part in the show myself.

At that time one of the students at Yale—where my father was a professor—was a plump-face Sioux Indian with an ochreous skin and a perpetual grin. His English name was John Rogers but he was always known as Johnny-Punkin-Face. Although ordinarily a thoroughly-civilized Indian wearing conventional clothes, whenever Buffalo Bill's Wild West came to town Johnny would temporarily go native, and for the duration of the show would don buckskin, paint and feathers and join his fellow tribesmen.

On one occasion when the Wild West was scheduled to arrive, Johnny suggested that I should join him and play Indian. Naturally I jumped at the chance and I had the time of my life. Johnny introduced me to his Indian friends and relatives, among them an enormously fat, jolly squaw who constantly was surrounded by a bevy of children ranging from papooses on cradle-boards, to boys and girls six to eight years old. They were not all hers by any means; but she loved children and attracted them like a magnet, and she had been appropriately nicknamed Too-Many-Toes.

JOHNNY found an Indian costume that was a good fit and with Annie Oakley helping with my makeup and Johnny Baker offering advice, I became transformed into a very realistic looking young Sioux. In fact, I was such a genuine appearing Indian that I completely fooled the cowboys, scouts and others. From that time on, whenever the Wild West Show came to town, I temporarily joined the show. To be sure I soon left off posing as an Indian and joined Vicente Oropeza's Rurales; but I had acquired a vast amount of Indian lore, learned to speak Sioux after a fashion, mastered the Indian sign language and made many lifetime Indian friends—among them; a young Oglala Sioux named White Eagle. He was an exceedingly smart, intelligent youth; he spoke fourteen Indian dialects—in addition to Spanish, English, French and some German and Russian—and was the show's official interpreter. He had been adopted by Buffalo Bill and his Christian name was George Cody, although he much preferred White Eagle. Long years after the Wild West Show was a thing of the past, I met White Eagle at his home in North Carolina; and although I never would have recognized him he knew me instantly and greeted me by my Sioux name, Tchanka Tanku (Big Road).

Vicente Oropeza was a remarkable man. He had been a bullfighter and bandit before he turned Rurale and as he often said: "A most excellent bandit." He was an enormously tall, heavily built Mexican but as light on his feet as a cat. He was the first man ever to spin a rope and in some ways was the best rope-spinner I ever have seen—and I knew Will Rogers, personally.

On one occasion, Oropeza leaped onto the long dining-tent table and spun his rope back and forth over the dishes, never more than an inch or two above them, but never touching them, regardless of their various heights. Another of his feats was to stand blindfolded with his back to a horse and rider and call out by which foot he would loop the horse. Judging only by the sound of the oncoming horse, he would spin his riata backward and never missed his throw.

Although a great deal has been written in regard to Buffalo Bill's ability as a rifle-shot, in reality he was a very poor marksman. His one "exhibition" stunt was to ride at a slow single-foot and break glass balls tossed up by another horseman. But the rifle he used was bored smooth, and was loaded with shot cartridges, while the glass balls were never more than a few yards distant. Moreover, Cody was not at all popular with the members of the show. He was inclined to be a bit arrogant, to assume a somewhat patronizing attitude, and was regarded as a bit of a stuffed shirt. Partially, this feeling was due to the fact that he invariably stopped at the best hotels and in the parade wore a complete costume of snow-white fringed buckskin, a white ten-gallon hat, white gauntlets, and rode in a showy Stanhope carriage drawn by a tandem of white horses.

To the cow punchers, and others of the show, this savoured of too much "swank". They felt that he should have his quarters on the show grounds; that he should eat with the rest in the dining tent. They did not realize that Cody's "showing-off" was the best of publicity. Buffalo Bill was a showman first and a former scout and buffalo hunter second; and it must be admitted that he was one of the most striking and famous figures of the Old West. It is not at all surprising that, as was also the case with so many of the Old Timers of the frontiers, his life and his deeds should have been glamorized and exaggerated in fiction.

Connecticut Men Who Sailed

Connecticut Men Who Sailed In Tiny Cockleshells of Boats Built Rich Sea Trade In Which Cash Hardly Ever Figured

A. Hyatt Verrill

The Hartford Courant; Jan 5, 1936; researched by Alan Schenker, digitized by Doug Frizzle, Nov 2011.

Luck Alone At the Helm On Voyages

Inland Farmers, Ignorant Of Navigation, Put to Sea For Any Port They Might Strike

All Transactions Based On Barter

Lumber, Cloth, Nails, Flour and Tobacco Traded for Rum, Sugar, Molasses and Indigo

Nowadays, when we are accustomed to using paper and silver currency, bank checks and drafts, when all commerce and trade is conducted on a monetary basis, we rarely stop to think of the difficulties our pioneer ancestors met in the days when actual currency was seldom seen. And few persons are aware of the means by which this difficulty was overcome or what a highly important part actual barter played in the history of New England and New England's commerce.

Wampum Scorned By Whites.

In their dealings with the Indians, the early settlers, of course found barter was necessary. The redmen had no use for shillings or pence but they had their own currency in the form of wampum or "peak." And here it may be of interest to explain that both these terms were derived from the Algonquin word "Warapumpeag" or "Yanpunpeeg," meaning "Strings of white beads." (Wamp or Yanp—white; Umpi or Unpe—a string of beads and Ag or Eg meaning more than one or many). Among most of the eastern tribes wampum was the standard of exchange, the blue being worth several times as much as the white, but with the arrival of the whitemen with entirely new goods, and desiring furs rather than shell beads, a new medium of exchange became essential. As a result a more or less uniform and recognized system of relative values was established with the standard, as we might say, based on some particular animal pelt.

Marten Skin As Standard.

My own great-great-grandfather, who maintained a trading post in Maine adopted the marten as his standard, and the system he followed was typical of all the outlying communities at that time. A marten pelt had a value of either half a pound of tobacco, four ounces of gunpowder, two yards of calico or two pounds of flour. Mink skins had one-half the trade value of marten but varied somewhat from year to year, and all other pelts were estimated on the trade value of marten skins. In cases where there was a small balance over, the "change" was made in articles of small exchange value, such as beads, lead, hoop iron, pins, and so forth.

Similar methods were followed in all business deals. Grain and corn brought to the mill were ground in exchange for a certain portion of the meal or flour, and logs were sawed in return for one board or plank in every five cut in the mill.

Good Profits to Be Had.

Once each year the furs, skins and forest products which had been obtained were taken to some coast town where they were disposed of for debit notes, supplies and various goods for trade. It may appear at first thought, as though there could be little or no gain by trading powder and shot or cutlery for furs, and then bartering the pelts for more ammunition and hardware. But as a matter of fact, there were immense profits to be made. Thus a marten skin, for which the trader had given four ounces of gunpowder, might be sold in Portland or Boston for several pounds of powder, which in turn would buy 10 or 12 marten skins.

In most portions of New England, however, the beaver skin was the ordinary accepted "standard." and instead of keeping accounts, recording sales and other transactions in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, they were kept in terms of beaver skins. It is recorded that Samoset sold an area of land to the British for "50 beavers." Not that the chief received payment for the real estate in beavers' pelts, which would have been about the last things he needed, but in powder and shot, hatchets and blankets, cloth, beads and trinkets to the value of 50 beaver skins. Very often, in the old documents still preserved, there is mention of cattle, household goods, grain and produce, even the cost of building ships, having been paid for in "beavers."

Currency Practically Disappears.

But very frequently no genuine beaver skins were passed from hand to hand, the actual deal being made in equivalents of beaver pelts. Indeed, so universal and well recognized did this "beaver" standard become that for greater convenience coins or tokens were struck bearing a rude figure of a beaver and which were known as "beavers." These took the place of true currency and had the value of a prime beaver skin. This led to the widely adopted use of tokens, usually of lead, brass or copper, which for a number of years served throughout New England in place of real money. They were issued by established merchants and shipping firms in the coastwise towns and were stamped with the values of the existing British coins in circulation. Real currency being extremely scarce, it was retained by the merchants and shipping firms for the purpose of liquidating taxes, port charges, customs dues and other debts which called for payment in specie, the artisans, laborers and public at large being paid in tokens which were accepted at their face value, although their worth depended entirely upon the integrity and financial status of those who issued them, the tokens being in effect, merely promissary notes, as one might say.

Even up to 50 years ago many of these old New England tokens were in use to some extent, and I can remember when, as a boy in Maine, I bought many a stick of candy, and many a marble, kite or other toy with brass tokens given to me by my grandmother along with big copper pennies and half-pennies. Often, too, these tokens greatly simplified the problems of international exchange, and many of the New England ship owners issued tokens which passed current in the British, Dutch and French West Indies as well as in New England.

Although beaver skins had become a widely recognized standard or basis of all trade values in northern New England, the settlers in the southern sections had established their own "standards" based on local products and commodities. Thus, in Connecticut, oxen, corn, salt pork and hides were the units; on which all barter was based, and were regarded as legal tender in payment of local debts and transactions, being commonly called "country money." Thus, in a contract made on June 13, 1717, between a Mr. Whiting of Hartford and Comfort Davis, it was provided that Davis, who "hath hired my whale bote to go awhalyng to Fishers Islande," was to "pay 20 shillings for the use of "bote and gere", and three pounds "if she bee loste and they get nothinge," payment to be made in "such goodes as I may use to my advantyge." It was also agreed that if Davis were successful and took a whale, that he should pay Mr. Whiting the sum of three pounds 10 shillings "in oyle from ye fish."

In another contract made in 1681, Hugh Mould of New London agreed to build a ship, the "Alexander and Martha" for a one-eighth share in the vessel and "merchantible goodes" to the value of 165 pounds.

But it was in ocean commerce that barter really came into its own. Trade was truly trade in those days, and New England's ship masters were the greatest of all traders. The first small vessels to be built were confined to the coastwise trade carrying cloth, household goods, powder and shot, hardware and similar articles from the larger towns to outlying settlements where the products of civilization were exchanged for furs, gums, wampum, sassafras roots and other native products. Often the little trading vessels sailed from place to place with no definite objective, and trading wherever they found it to the best advantage.

Used “Hiede of Lether."

But there was a regularly established trade between Connecticut and Virginia, with a "hiede of lether" as the established "standard" of barter. In the papers of Captain John Coite, owner of the pink "Providence," of Middletown, there is a schedule of trade values based on the hide as a standard. According to this, one and one-half pounds of hides equalled one pound of buckskin. One pound of hides equalled two pounds of old iron, and two pounds of hides equalled one pound of old pewter, and it was provided that the "leaste buckskin" should "weigh not less than four and one-half pounds. In this list of "country money" or "merchantable pay," the relative trade values of corn, wheat, pease, salt beef and pork were set down, as well as wampum, the blue wampum being worth a bushel of wheat per fathom while a fathom of the while shell beads would purchase only a bushel of corn. As the monetary values of grain and some other commodities were noted, the blue wampum was worth four shillings a fathom and the white one shilling and six pence in actual cash—provided there was cash in circulation.

Striking Out for West Indies

It was not long before the farmer-sailors of New England discovered that trading ox hides for buckskin, salt pork for codfish and pewter plates for wampum and furs with their neighboring colonists was not a very lucrative form of commerce. But farther asea were the West Indies replete with sugar, rum, molasses and other goods in great demand, and the New England skippers decided to try their hands at bartering in the islands. It seems incredible that men who tilled their inland farms beside the Connecticut and in the valleys of New England, and whose only vessels were the tiny open sloops of 10 or 12 tons burden should ever have dreamed of attempting ocean voyages to the Antilles. Yet for many years these little craft hailing from Hartford, Glastonbury, Middletown, Windsor, Thompsonville and even Springfield made trip after trip to the West Indies and even to South America. It was such men braving the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea in their tiny cockleshells of home-built boats, who were the pioneers of New England's vast West Indian trade and laid the foundations of America's once famous merchant marine.

Destination Hardly Mattered.

Possessing the most rudimentary ideas of navigation, entirely ignorant of the use of the quadrant, incapable of taking an observation without charts, depending wholly upon inaccurate compasses and dead reckoning, and with only a man and a boy as their crew, they sailed away on their long voyages to the tropics. It is not at all surprising that these daring New Englanders rarely reached the destination for which they sailed. The wonder is that they ever survived. But they could scarcely miss the West Indian islands altogether, and one island served their purpose about as well as another. And having once reached the Antilles they could sail from island to island, bartering their cargoes and eventually sailing back to New England with their sloops deep laden with tropical products.

The logs or rather the journals of these adventurous, fearless traders make most interesting, and often humorous, reading. As a usual thing more time was consumed in sailing down the rivers to the Sound than on the voyage from Long Island Sound to the West Indies or South America. And judging by their quaintly written comments, the skippers considered "makeinge the open sea" a greater feat of seamanship than the ocean voyage to the Antilles. In the Journal of Captain Lord, of Glastonbury, it is recorded that his sloop, the "Speedwell," set sail on August 20. 1755, and by September 15, the vessel had reached no farther than Rocky Hill!

"We can neither tow, warp nor sail, and I fear me we never shall," wrote the skipper-owner, who was compelled to put back to Hartford to replenish his water and provisions. Yet he must have managed eventually to have won clear of the river, for in November he was in far-distant Surinam or Dutch Guiana, and was exchanging his cargo at "this dumb dirty place," as he called it, to "goode profittc", and a little later set sail for home with a load of logwood, lignum vitae, sugar, rum, mahogany and green-heart timber.

Days of ‘Horse Jockeys.’

The earliest of these farmer-sailors to voyage to the West Indies carried cargoes of miscellaneous merchandise consisting of lumber, barrel-shooks, cloth, nails, flour, bread, brass goods, tobacco, broom handles, peas, onions, corn, and so-forth which they traded for rum, sugar, indigo, gums, species and logwood. But they soon discovered there was a greater demand for cattle and horses than for manufactured goods and foodstuffs and presently they were carrying little cargo aside from livestock. In fact horses became such an important trade that the Connecticut River vessels were called "horse jockeys", and they frequently sailed for the Antilles with 40 or 50 of the animals as a cargo. Try and imagine what it must have been like to have voyaged from Connecticut to Barbados in a 15-ton open boat carrying 50 horses, with the necessary fodder and water, and manned by a farmer-captain, a slave and a boy.

It was even worse when swine or cattle were substituted for horses, and as might have been expected, the losses, especially in heavy weather, were very heavy. But so profitable was the business that even if all but one-third of the animals perished at sea, the long voyager, paid handsomely, for there was a profit at both ends of the cruise.

Yankee Ingenuity Triumphs.

History fails to record who was the first of these New England sea-going traders to discover that the Dutch colonists in Surinam were in need of cattle and bricks. But it must have been early in the game, for by 1720, a regular trade in these commodities was being carried on with Dutch Guiana.

And here Yankee ingenuity and shrewdness came to the fore. When a New England skipper arrived in the Dutch colony and found that for one reason or another he could not "fill up" with rum, sugar, molasses and logwood in exchange for his cargo, was he discouraged? Not a bit of it! From trader-sea captain he would transform himself to a mason-builder, contract to erect buildings with the bricks he had brought, and accept payment for his services in local products.

Just Like Glastonbury.

Most of the brick buildings to be seen in Paramaribo today were thus built by Connecticut traders, which explains why the residences and public buildings of a Dutch Colony in South America are so amazingly similar to those of a New England village. Many a visitor to Dutch Guiana has been sorely puzzled as to why fireless houses should be provided with brick chimneys, why homes sizzling under an equatorial sun should have heavy, green-painted shutters to the windows, why there should be cupolas perched atop the steeply-pitched shingled roofs, and why fan-lights and wooden pillars should frame the panelled front doors. Even the natives of Surinam can offer no explanation, but in a letter written to his wife, Captain Joshua Green of Glastonbury says: "I have this day completed the building of the stadhaus, and were I to be crossing the green in my cups, I would deem myself at home, so like to the town hall is it builded, with green shutters to its windows and cupola atop its roof, and in all matters much the same."

The Next Step.

From voyaging to South America and the Antilles it was little more than a step to extend the New England trade to Europe and Africa, and very soon the little sloops, pinks and ketches of obscure New England villages were carrying on a three cornered trade, sailing to Spain and the Barbary Coast with flour, lumber and corn which were exchanged for wines, millet, olive oil, cloth and slaves; thence to the West Indies where new cargoes were secured by barter, and finally returning to their home ports with goods worth many times the value of the original cargoes.

Trade at Its Best.

Perhaps the most remarkable example of the extent to which this New England maritime trade was really trade, is the record of the ship "Neptune" of New Haven. Under command of Captain Townsend, the "Neptune" set sail for China in 1797, carrying a general cargo and with gold coins to the value of $500 for use in case of an emergency. Putting in at the West Indies, the skipper traded a portion of his cargo for rum, sugar and the like. Then he squared away for Rio where he bartered more of his cargo for fustic, indigo, sanders and other products of Brazil. At the Falkland Islands and about Terra del Fuego, the crew devoted some time to sealing, and then, rounding Cape Horn, the "Neptune" headed for the South Sea Islands. Here a brisk trade was carried on and calico, cotton cloth, brass wire and old iron were exchanged for divi-divi, pearls and pearl shell, spices and dragons' blood. Finally reaching China, Captain Townsend bartered his seal skins and the remainder of his original cargo, receiving tea, silks, lacquer work, porcelain, sandalwood and ivory in return, and hoisted his topsails bound home.

On July 11, 1799, two years and six months after he had set sail from New Haven, he dropped anchor in the harbor with a cargo valued at $280,000 and with the original $500 in gold coin intact!

No wonder that the expression: "As sharp as a Yankee trader," became a byword throughout the world.

Long before the "Neptune" made this memorable voyage, script had come into general use throughout New England. But even after paper money and tokens were everywhere accepted as currency, the old system of barter and trade remained popular and formed the basis of practically all business and commerce.

Getting Along Without Money.

In a letter written to a friend a piano manufacturer of Saybrook stated that he had handled less than two pounds in currency in 10 years, and then described in detail how he had managed. Receiving an order for a piano from a customer in New York, he arranged with the owner of a sloop to transport the instrument and himself to Manhattan, payment for freight and passage to be made in cordage, sailcloth and gear. Arriving in New York, he was paid for the piano by debt-notes on various merchants from whom he received the cordage and other articles with which to discharge his debt to the vessel's owner; rosewood and ivory, tools and household goods, clothing, and a bolt of silk for a gown for his wife, as well as a tierce of tobacco and a cask of Holland gin. Returning to Saybrook, he exchanged the gin and some of the tobacco for a yoke of oxen and a milch cow, and having no use for the cattle he traded them in for bricks with which to erect an addition to his piano shop.