208 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



Whitaker, a minister of the Gospel, came into Court and took the 

 Oath of Allegiance and fidelty, as directed by an act of General 

 Assembly, intitled an Act to Oblige the free male inhabitants of this 

 State, above a certain Age, to give Assurance of Allegiance to the 

 same and for other purposes : " These Annals, Vol. II., p. 129. Was 

 this the eccentric Deacon Whiteakre who once prayed publicly to 

 God, before his Methodist congregation, that he might be supplied 

 with a nevv horse and soon received one ? 



Attention is called also to the records made in relation to the care 

 of the families of soldiers from the Monongahela Valley in the War of 

 the Revolution. These records are frequent but exasperatingly brief. 



Our Pennsylvania histories show that at least two Pennsylvania regi- 

 ments, fully organized, marched eastward to take part in the battles of 

 the Revolution, but the records now published disclose that at least 

 three regiments, organized as Virginia Voluntaries, the 5th, 12th and 

 13th Regiments, were composed more or less of men living in the 

 Valley of the Monongahela. Verily the Revolutionary history of that 

 valley is as yet unwritten. 



Tlic Early Cidtoicx. 



We find in these records that the currency of the early days was in 

 Pounds, Shillings, and Pence. And it will be noted that in the early 

 causes in these courts, a recognizance of bail for an appearance at 

 court was required in say ^25, or in _p/^ioo; while in 1780, at the 

 end of the existence of this court in Pennsylvania, some such recog- 

 nizances were in ^5,000 or more, amounting, as we would now trans- 

 late the English p/^, to about $25,000. Wherefore, an explanatory note 

 on this early currency and its depreciation may not be out of place. 



Before and during the x'\rticles of Confederation of 1776, and until 

 the adoption of the Constitution of the United States in 1787, there 

 was no supreme national authority, and therefore no national currency 

 based upon a recognized unit. In every State there were at least two 

 units of value, the State pound and the Spanish milled dollar. Our 

 people having been under the English government adopted the Eng- 

 lish pound, shilling, and penny, as the name of its currency or money 

 of account, yet the trade with the Spanish colonies in America 

 and the West Indies brought into the country as its only coined 

 money the Spanish dollar and its subdivisions. Thus the Dollar of 

 the early day was not the " Dollar of our Daddies," but the " Spanish 

 Milled Dollar." 



