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Purse and Post
"Many of the Saints in England have complained that their friends do not write to them from this country," wrote Joseph Fielding from Nauvoo in the August 1842 Millennial Star. Tardiness in answering letters from friends and relatives apparently transcends time and distance. Today, it is usually a case of our own procrastination, but the Saints in Illinois had a far more legitimate reason. Fielding continued: "One cause of this neglect is, that almost all things here are carried on without the use of money, but they cannot send letters by post without it; . . . I would, with pleasure, write letters to many individuals in England and the Isle of Man, but I must beg to be excused; it would take more money than I can at present command."
Operating a safe and efficient mail service and issuing sound money are two important functions of our federal government. It is difficult for us to imagine the inconveniences of life without them, and yet that was exactly the case in Nauvoo. The most critical of the two problems, of course, was the lack of sound money. So crucial was the need to infuse Nauvoo's economy with sound money that the editor of the Church newspaper in England, the Millennial Star, advised emigrants headed for Nauvoo not to lock up their money like misers but to put it to use in business or property for the benefit of others as well as themselves. Charles Dickens, who traveled through the old Northwest Territory in 1842, observed: "[The country] has no money; really no money. The bank paper won't pass; the newspapers are full of advertisements from tradesmen who sell by barter; [certainly true in the Nauvoo papers] and American gold is not to be had or purchased."
The United States government, confident that all trade needs could be satisfied with specie (gold and silver coins), did not issue any paper currency designed specifically for public circulation until 1861. Because of the shortage of gold and silver in the rapidly expanding American economy, numerous private banks, with no laws forbidding them, filled the money void by issuing their own notes. Most banks were solvent enough to redeem the notes they issued, but a number of "wildcat banks" lacked the necessary funds. These banks simply shut down, leaving the owners of their notes with worthless paper, causing merchants, tavern keepers, and other business people to be very suspicious of any out-of-town bank notes. Mormon journal keeper Warren Foote recorded just such an incident in one of his travels outside of Nauvoo:
"We drove to Shalersville and stopped to feed. We had considerable difficulty in paying our bill which was 12½ cents. I had no money smaller than a five dollar bill [a private bank note]. The landlady said that she could not change it, so I went to a store and got it changed. I offered a one dollar to her and she said she could not change that. . . . William told her that if she could not change it, we could not pay her and we must be going. . . . She gave me the change very readily. The fact was, she did not want paper money at all, but wanted silver."