When the workmen tore down the old Wells & Newell’s Store in Springfield, Vt., in the early 1800s, they discovered a cache of money hidden in a wall – both counterfeit and real. They believed they’d found the remnants of the Eureka counterfeiting ring.
Eureka Counterfeiting Ring
The ring was a band of Tory sympathizers who hoped to pass their counterfeit money off on Gen. John Stark and his soldiers as they passed through Vermont to the Battle of Bennington.
General Stark at the Battle of Bennington (New York Public Library)
The story, as retold many times, goes like this:
In the summer of 1777, a group of men were working their way through New England, pouring phony pewter coins and passing fake paper money to unsuspecting victims. The state of official currency during the American Revolution was dicey, creating opportunities for counterfeiters.
The bills from the old store walls bore the image of an Indian in a canoe travelling down a raging stream. They carried the legend: “Pass Me Along.”
This band of counterfeiters had holed themselves up in the tiny town (not even a town, really) of Eureka, Vt. The area gets its name from the small schoolhouse located there. Four families had built the school in colonial times. And the school got its name from David Searle, a young graduate from Yale College who had set off for the frontier. Upon reaching Fort No. 4 in western New Hampshire, he learned that a small school nearby needed a teacher.
Searle traipsed through the wilderness until he found the building. He then shouted, ‘Eureka!’ The name caught on.
The Eureka Schoolhouse, once painted yellow and blue.
Our Money Bright
As the legend goes, our counterfeiters were busily drinking and pouring phony coin late into the night. They made up a little ditty to celebrate their expected boon:
Our money bright
Buys rum at night
For the weary soldier boy.For what care we
And what care he
If it is all alloy.From daylight to dark
We’ll cheat old Stark
Yankee Doodle do.
Eureka, however, was like any small town. It wasn’t so easy to keep a secret. The young daughter of a friend of General Stark overheard the song, and it stuck in her head. Out gathering her cows one morning, the girl saw Stark’s soldiers coming down the road. Rushing to meet him, she told Stark he had enemies in the house at Eureka.
A Good Omen
Forewarned, Stark seized the counterfeiters and most of their bogus cash – missing only a small portion hidden in the walls. He proclaimed it a good omen for the battle that was coming.
John Stark
Exactly how true is the tale? Tough to say. There certainly was money found in the walls of the old store. And there certainly were counterfeiters during the Revolution.
One large-scale counterfeiting operation was centered in Londonderry, N.H. – Stark’s own hometown. It was organized by Tories hoping to destabilize American currency, and Stark knew one of the leaders of that ring well: his own brother. But that’s another story . . .
This story was updated in 2022.
