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1 Dollar - Ezra Griswold Worthington, Ohio
| Issuer | Ezra Griswold Worthington |
|---|---|
| Year | 1816-19 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 146 x 65 mm |
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| Obverse description | Letterpress-printed note with two vertical thick black decorative border panels on the left and right margins, each bearing the inscriptions ONE and OHIO respectively. Two matching black oval cartouches, each enclosing the numeral "1", appear at the upper left and upper right corners. The central text block carries the promise-to-pay legend with the issuer's location and the printer's imprint at the foot. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Blank, unprinted reverse on plain paper stock. |
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| Comments |
Murray, Draper, Fairman & Co. were among the most respected security printers in early nineteenth-century America — their Philadelphia shop produced notes for dozens of private issuers across the young republic, and the quality of their engraving was generally well above what most small-town merchants could have arranged locally. That Worthington commissioned them for what amounts to a personal scrip note speaks to how seriously some Ohio merchants took the business of issuing private currency during the chronic small-change shortages of the post-War of 1812 years.
Ohio had no functioning state bank during parts of this window, and federally chartered specie was scarce west of the Appalachians. Merchant-issued notes like this one filled a practical gap, though their legal standing was perpetually murky.