7 Dollars Peoples' Bank of Paterson

The $7 denomination places this note squarely in the era when American private banks issued in whatever amounts suited their cashiers — $3, $6, $7 — largely to frustrate counterfeiters, who found odd denominations harder to pass convincingly. Casilear, Durand, Burton & Edmonds was a short-lived New York engraving partnership active in the early 1830s before its principals dispersed: John Casilear later abandoned bank note engraving entirely for landscape painting and became a respected Hudson River School artist.

The Peoples' Bank of Paterson operated during New Jersey's freewheeling "free banking" period, when legislative charter requirements were loose and institutional failures were common.