Episode 116: The Amoskeag Mills Pay Window: How Manchester Wages Reached Pittsfield Pockets
From Radio Moonshine with Alchemist G. G. Wilkins (1860s Broadcasts) · 31:02
Show by MoonshineStills
Follow 1860s mill wages from the Amoskeag Mills pay window in Manchester, New Hampshire, up the Suncook Valley Turnpike to a moonshiner's counter in Pittsfield, where Alchemist G. G. Wilkins weighs every coin on a brass balance scale before the customer finishes talking. This episode digs into Civil War era money history: greenbacks, postage currency, copper merchant tokens, and company scrip, and how payday weekends kept the copper still running. Appalachian slang historian Clara Higgins shares stories of tokens traded at a discount and the old names for payday whiskey, and the call-in segment covers thump keg distilling tips.In this episode:How Amoskeag Mills wages traveled from Manchester to Pittsfield, New Hampshire farms in the Civil War yearsGreenbacks, the 1862 Legal Tender Act, postage currency, and fractional currency explainedCivil War merchant tokens, copper store cards, and company scrip, and why Congress banned them in 1864Weighing silver half dollars, bronze cents, and large cents on a balance scale to catch counterfeitsMill girls, the cotton famine, and Amoskeag's Springfield rifle-musket contractsClara Higgins on discounted tokens, whiskey priced by purse weight, and old Appalachian payday whiskey slangCall-in: hickory ashes and red oak shavings in the thump keg, and why the blue-flame moonshine test is a mythPayday weekend moonshine trade on the Suncook Valley Turnpike, with Barnaby the pet bearDr. G. G. Wilkins follows mill wages from the Amoskeag counting-room window in Manchester out to the farms of the Suncook Valley during the war years. He covers greenbacks, postage currency, private copper tokens and scrip, and his habit of putting a customer's coins on the balance scale before the customer stops talking. Appalachian slang historian Clara Higgins tells new stories about trading tokens at a discount, a great-uncle who priced his jugs by the weight of the buyer's purse, and the old names for payday whiskey. In the call-in segment Wilkins answers Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller's question about hickory ashes and red oak shavings in the thump keg, and he knocks down the blue-flame test at the anvil.Call us! MoonshineStills: (603) 674-9990. Yes, really, it's OK to call. Talk to a real person about copper moonshine stills, distilling questions, or anything you heard on the show.Shop copper stills: MoonshineStills.com#AmoskeagMills #CivilWarMoney #Greenbacks #CivilWarTokens #PostageCurrency #FractionalCurrency #MillGirls #ManchesterNH #PittsfieldNH #SuncookValley #ThumpKeg #BlueFlameTest #PaydayWhiskey #CopperStill #MoonshineStills #RadioMoonshine #Moonshine #Distilling #HomeDistilling #Moonshiner #Whiskey #CraftSpirits #History #AmericanHistory #NewHampshire #CivilWar #1860s #Podcast #HistoryPodcast #OldTimeRadio
More episodes of Radio Moonshine with Alchemist G. G. Wilkins (1860s Broadcasts)
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- Episode 150: Dr. Wilkins and the Smallpox Scare of 1863: Quarantine, Camphor, and Closed Roads
- Episode 151: The Pittsfield Militia Muster Day: Drums, Drill, and Whiskey on the Common
- Episode 142: The Soldiers' Home Furlough: What Wounded Men Brought Back to Pittsfield in 1863
- Episode 143: Barnaby and the Tax Man's Horse: A Lesson in Livestock Diplomacy
- Episode 144: The Gold Premium and the Copper Cent: Why Greenback Swings Made Everyone a Coin Trader
- Episode 145: The Cooper's Hoop and the Revenue Gauger: Marking, Measuring, and Miscounting Barrels in 1860s New Hampshire
- Episode 146: Lead Pipe, Zinc Roofs, and Sheet Brass: What Wilkins Refused to Put in a Still
- Episode 147: The Lamprey River Smugglers' Trail: Seacoast Rum, Inland Rye, and the Barter Between
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