25 Cents Huntingdon, Cambria and Indiana Turnpike Road Company

Turnpike companies issuing their own fractional currency was briefly common in Pennsylvania during the 1810s, when small-denomination coinage was chronically short and private road companies found themselves needing change for tolls. The Huntingdon, Cambria and Indiana Turnpike Road Company connected the Susquehanna River valley to the trans-Allegheny interior — not a short haul, and not a wealthy one. These notes circulated among farmers, drovers, and ironworkers who had little alternative.

Murray, Draper, Fairman & Co. were among the most capable security printers in Philadelphia at the time, later folding into what became the American Bank Note Company. The signatures of Stewart and Blair would have been applied by hand.