THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 



305 



r" 



The war expenses were enormous for a country so poor, 

 and our Congress had only the meagerest power to raise 

 money. Our town was in debt about one thousand 

 pounds, and the wealthiest of her citizens from whom she 

 might borrow were now nearly bankrupt. 



The Continental paper money was depreciating so fast 

 that a soldier's wages 

 melted away in his 

 hands without being 

 spent. In fact, the 

 soldiers of our town 

 demanded corn for 

 payment of the 

 town's part of their 

 money. A cynical 

 barber in Philadel- 

 phia papered the walls 

 of his shop with the 

 cheap stuff, and 

 another person tarred 

 and feathered a dog 

 with bills. Our fish- 

 ing interests had been 

 killed for several years 

 by the British cruis- 

 ers, so that this town 

 lost one important 

 source of revenue. 



When the poor 

 soldiers at Valley 

 Forge that winter, 1777-78, needed clothing it is probable 

 that some Cohasset homes received piteous letters from 

 the suffering patriots, and the clothes needed by Cohasset 

 men were paid for out of the town treasury.* 



* Vote of April 13, 1778. Jeorum Lincoln was at least one Cohasset soldier in the 

 Jersey campaign camping that winter and in the battle of Morristown. 





-^E^^ 



Ir'H, 



\j;\t 



40 < ■.■j-">. 



Face and Back of a Fifty-dollar Bill, 



1778. 



" Not worth a continental." 



