Paper money vignettes often pose identification problems. Whilesome actually have the title of the artwork engraved alongside the vignette, this is not always the case. Sometimes a vignette was chosen andthe description omitted or misplaced, because it just was not important tothat particular bank. The bank note above is striking, especially with thelarge green counter . Unfortunately, it does not appear clearlyin this black and white publication. The right-hand vignette depicting abucolic scene around a waterfall is what this article is about; identification of the statuary on the left is a project for another day.

Identifying the subjects on the face of state-sanctioned or can seem like an endless pursuit. These paper bills,sanctioned by states but ignored by the Federal government, were at timesworth less than a and have become a collecting bonanza forastute collectors with good historical knowledge. Sixty years ago therewas little market for these bills. Many of their vignettes went unidentified and many counterfeit and spurious examples were left unattributed. Two pioneers in the field, Dr. John Muscalus and David C. Wismer, were able to identify some of the vignettes and published them in their writings. Even today, some vignettes elude identification. Banknote companies and engravers must have known why they were asked to engrave certain scenes or subjects, and in some cases titled the vignettes so they could be identified in the future.

However, the people and events depicted in the vignettes weremostly not identified in writing on the note(s) itself/themselves. Theowners of these bills, if interested at all, would have needed a good storeof knowledge to figure out what he or she was actually looking at. Howcould the average Joe know that he was looking at an engraving of , the Persian-themed Mansion built in Bridgeport, Conn. by P.T.Barnum, or the engraving of a historic and brutal murder in upstate NewYork of Jane McCrea? It wasn't easy and these vignettes take time toresearch and attribute.

The banknote at the head of this article features an intricatelyengraved waterfall scene as one of the two main vignettes. This attractivenote was issued by the Bank of Hartford County in Hartford, Connecticut. One quickly notices the two Native American figures, with the male figure standing in front of the waterfall, and the female seated on theground next to him. This is not as common a vignette as often appears onmost notes issued by this bank. As hard as I tried, I couldn't attribute the rustic vignette to an area of Hartford or even that general area of Connecticut. Identifying it became a challenge that took well over a year for me to solve.

Figure 3 - Close up image of the Fallsthat appears on the bank note

Figure 4 - Close up image of themodern day falls in Regional Park

Figure 5 - Banknote printer's proof ofthe falls

Figure 6 - Statue of the two NativeAmercians

Without being able to locate descriptions or titles of the vignettes, neither the statue nor the waterfall could be identified initially. However, while browsing through the R. Shawn Hewett book A History and Catalog of Minnesota Obsolete Bank Notes & Scrip (2006), which featuresplenty of pictures of notes from Minnesota, I found a match. This vignette had also been used on $2 notes of the Bank of Minnesota in thecity of Saint Paul (please see illustration above). Looking at the imagesof both the Hartford and St. Paul notes, I realized that the engraver in this case, American Bank Note Co. of New York, must have held title to thevignette die and was able to offer its use to any bank that wanted it.

So, what waterfall was I looking at? Were those two NativeAmericans important to the engraved theme? Yes, they and the waterfallwere very important in identifying the scene in the vignette! The waterfall's name became evident as the previously named Minnehaha Fallsand then the identity of the two Native Americans came to light.

Portland, Maine's Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an established and well-read American poet of the mid-1800s. In 1855, only a few years before these banks issued their notes, he completed an epic poem about a fictitious Ojibwa warrior named Hiawatha and his female Dakota companion and love, Minnehaha. This poem, The Song of Hiawatha, quickly became an American classic. These two banks evidently thought the vignette showing the two Native Americans and the waterfall would be a good subject to place on their notes. The name Minnehaha when translated from the Native tongue means, or . The place shown in the vignette of the notes is the falls at the not-yet-named Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis. The engraver precisely portrayed the falls and surroundings which can be seen when comparing the different images above, leaving little if any chance of ambiguity as to the identification of the visual content.

Jacob Fjelde, a Norwegian sculptor then living in Minnesota, created a plaster sculpture depicting Hiawatha and Minnehaha for the Minnesota Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. Abronze version of Fjelde's work was placed in Minnehaha Park above thefalls in 1912.

I was later surprised to note that the vignette (Minnehaha Falls)used on these notes had never before been attributed or identified on paper money or in any of the paper money references as I am now doing inthis issue of NENA News. There is no mention of it in either the Hewett book or its predecessor, Minnesota Obsolete Notes and Scrip by R.H.Rockholt, 1973. While I have not been able to find corroborating proof of the two Native subjects' identity in the engraved scene in the U.S. Obsolete Bank Notes book, it certainly seems reasonable to claim thatthese vignettes show the fictitious characters, Hiawatha and Minnehahaof Longfellow's poem posing at the base of Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis. The area around the falls and along the creek is now a preserve inthe city of Minneapolis named Minnehaha Regional Park. The fact thatthe park, the poem, and the vignettes are intertwined makes for a beautiful American story. Longfellow never actually visited this site, but if heknew his poem was the cause of his two subjects being included in thisbanknote vignette I'm sure he would have been pleased.

John adds:

For more information on the New England Numismatic Association, see:
https://www.nenacoin.org/