ORIGINAL 1787 PHILADELPHIA BANK OF NORTH AMERICA CHECK
JOSIAH & SAMUEL COATES — PAYABLE TO MILLER JOHN BROWN
Offered here is an original handwritten Philadelphia bank check or sight draft dated November 8, 1787, issued by the prominent Quaker mercantile partnership of Josiah and Samuel Coates and made payable to Philadelphia miller John Brown or bearer.
The draft directs the cashier of the Bank of North America—the first federally chartered commercial bank in the United States—to pay Brown thirteen dollars and thirty ninetieths of a dollar. It survives with the crossed and cut signature of “Josiah & Samuel Coates” and an exceptionally elaborate mercantile paraph or pen of ye Bank
Philada Novr 8. 1787—
Pay John Brown or bearer,
Thirteen Dollars & Thirty Ninetieths
13 : 30/90
Josiah & Samuel Coates”
THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA
Chartered by the Confederation Congress in 1781 and opened in Philadelphia in 1782, the Bank of North America was the first federally chartered commercial bank in the United States. Closely associated with Revolutionary financier Robert Morris, it helped stabilize American credit and performed several functions later associated with a national or central bank.
This draft was written during an especially important year in the bank’s history. Pennsylvania renewed its charter in March 1787 following a major political struggle over banking and concentrated financial power.
The check is also dated only weeks after the United States Constitution was signed in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787.
JOSIAH LANGDALE COATES
Josiah Langdale Coates (1747–1809) was a Philadelphia Quaker merchant and the elder brother of Samuel Coates. The brothers entered a formal partnership in October 1783 and participated in Philadelphia’s extensive shipping, grocery, and West Indian commercial networks.
Their surviving business records—including journals, daybooks, letter books, and Bank of North America bankbooks—document the operations of a substantial early American mercantile house. Josiah remained Samuel’s partner during the period in which this draft was issued.
SAMUEL COATES
Samuel Coates (1748–1830) was a prominent Philadelphia Quaker merchant, philanthropist, and civic leader. Orphaned during infancy, he was raised and trained in commerce by his uncle, merchant John Reynell. Samuel joined Reynell’s firm in 1771 and subsequently entered the shipping and West Indian trade with his brother Josiah.
Beyond his mercantile career, Samuel devoted more than forty years to Pennsylvania Hospital. He was elected to its Board of Managers in 1785, served as secretary from 1786 to 1812, and became president of the hospital’s board in 1812. During Philadelphia’s devastating yellow-fever epidemic of 1793, Coates remained in the city and assisted its medical and charitable institutions.
JOHN BROWN, PHILADELPHIA MILLER
The payee is identified as John Brown, a Philadelphia miller active during the Revolutionary and early national periods. Brown’s surviving business account books cover 1774–1777 and 1783–1787—the latter concluding in the same year as this draft.
As a miller, Brown occupied an essential position in Philadelphia’s commercial economy, processing or supplying flour and meal to grocers, bakers, merchants, shipowners, and exporters. The Coates brothers’ grocery and mercantile operations provide a natural commercial connection with Brown.
The precisely calculated payment may have represented flour, meal, milling, cartage, or settlement of a larger running account.
EARLY AMERICAN CURRENCY NOTATION
The amount is written as $13 and 30/90. Before decimal notation became completely standardized, Philadelphia merchants frequently divided the Spanish milled dollar into ninety parts because one dollar was locally valued at 7 shillings 6 pence, or 90 Pennsylvania pence.
Thus:
• 30/90 of a dollar equaled one-third of a dollar
• 30 Pennsylvania pence equaled 2 shillings 6 pence
• The total payment was $13⅓
This mixed dollar-and-ninetieths notation is a distinctive feature of early American financial documents.
CANCELLATION
The Coates partnership signature is crossed with heavy contemporary pen strokes, and the paper was physically cut or punctured during cancellation. These were intentional banking-security measures used to show that the check had been redeemed and to prevent its fraudulent reuse.
CONDITION
Original eighteenth-century laid paper with age toning, surface soiling, multiple old folds, edge and corner wear, small holes and areas of paper loss, ink erosion, a central cancellation cut or puncture, and substantial separation along one horizontal fold. The partnership signature is crossed by original cancellation strokes but remains identifiable. Faint writing, offsetting, and period docketing are visible on the reverse.
Please inspect all photographs carefully. A ruler is included in one photograph to indicate scale. The document is sold exactly as shown.
An evocative surviving artifact of early American banking, Philadelphia’s Quaker merchant community, the flour trade, and the commercial network surrounding the nation’s first chartered bank.
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