Rhode Island Currency
Rare 1786 State of Rhode Island Five Year Mortgage Bond
June 10, 1786-Dated. Providence, Rhode Island. Partly-Printed Document, being a Bond to the State of Rhode Island. Completed in the hand of and Signed Three Times in the text by “Joseph Clarke,” as Treasurer. Choice Very Fine.
This original document is dated 1786 in print, at Providence, Rhode Island, where John Atwood has signed this Bond to the State of Rhode Island for ten shillings and five pence. Signed boldly at bottom by Samuel Marcy, John Harris, John Atwood. Measures 6” x 7” with light folds, in overall nice, well printed and written condition with a small red wax and paper seal at lower right. This payment in addition against another existing Land Office Bond with the repayment, interest and principle mentioned as attached to that Bond.

According to the Journal of Economic History, Land Banks were established in most of the American colonies during the first half of the eighteenth century. Only two privately owned land banks were established, both being short lived. The Banks that actually functioned were public institutions, created and operated by the various Colonial governments. Their chief function consisted of lending out provincial paper money to citizens on the security of their land, farms, town houses, or other forms of real estate. Their primary purpose was everywhere the same, to provide a paper currency which, it was thought, would promote trade and industry and add to the general well-being and prosperity of the colonies. This particular official Rhode Island Treasury form is Extremely rare. The first of this type Rhode Island Mortgage Bond form we have seen.