Hamilton Company, Warren, Arkansas, Tokens



Hamilton Company Warren Arkansas tokens
Hamilton Company Warren Arkansas tokens

Hamilton Company Warren Arkansas tokens Hamilton Company Warren Arkansas tokens Hamilton Company Warren Arkansas tokens Hamilton Company Warren Arkansas tokens

I found these photos on sales at eBay. I thought I would share the pictures with you.
I received the following E-mails about the tokens:
"Several months ago, I ran across those old tokens on the Bradley County web site and didn't know anything about the Hamilton Company but they looked neat and interesting to me. I am a coin collector. But just this past week I was at the Bradley County Library here in town and was reading a book on early timber industry in Arkansas; in fact two books. One dealt with the Ouachita National Forest area near Texas and Oklahoma and the other dealt with forests in the gulf coastal plain (which included Warren). In one of those books I ran across pictures of tokens that looked almost exactly like the ones you have displayed on the website, except that they had another company's name instead of Hamilton and instead of Warren they had another Arkansas town. There was a little name they called the tokens but I didn't write it down (I can go back to the library and look, though, if you are interersted in the name of the book, etc). Thinking back, I believe they called them Brozins, evidently made of bronze, but one place they called them Bozins without the "r." They said that the lumber company would issue the tokens at the end of each day whereas payday was only about once or so a month. You could spend the tokens at the Company Store or Commissary as soon as you received them at face value. You could spend them elsewhere but you were docked 10 percent at almost all other stores. For those better off financially, you could retain those tokens from each day's wages and turn them back in to the paymaster on payday each month and you could get cold hard cash that would spend at the Company Store or anywhere else without the 10 percent discounting. Interesting reading and although I am only 57 years old I can remember when it was customary to pay farm workers at the end of each day. Public jobs at that time had already adjusted to a weekly payday. But now I would like to know who the Hamilton Company was. I did not see that name associated with any of the early Warrren, AR. lumber industry. Floyd Brown, March 2004" "John N. Hamilton was my great grandfather. He was a farmer but he also owned a store. The tokens were probably used in the 1880-1895 time frame. He died Nov. 4, 1895. Jack Scobey, August 2005"
I also found this note from Jann Woodard in the ARBRADLE list archives.
Subject: Re: [ARBRADLE] trade tokens, Hamilton Company of Warren Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 John Hamilton was a businessman in Warren in the late 1800's and early 1900's. He also owned the commissary at one of the old mills in Warren. He was connected to the Cathey and Scobey families. Seems his business was one of the ones that suffered complete loss by a big fire in Warren." NEW!!! Check these out! Other Trade Tokens from Warren, Arkansas If you know anything more about The Hamilton Company, please e-mail me, Barbara Logan.



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