Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/129

 THE CONNECTICUT

WILLIAM BROCKWAY.

About a score of years since, say in the year 1850, the proprietor of a modest printing-establishment in the beautiful "City of Elms," Conn., was employed by the New Haven bank to strike off all its notes, from time to time, from plates furnished by the Bank itself, upon paper also supplied from the same source. This work was performed (in those days) invariably in the presence of two of the Directors of the Bank, who stood by the press while the issues were thus being worked off, who brought the plates to the printer from the bank-vaults, and who as scrupulously noted their return to the safe again; where they were locked up until they were similarly required for use.

There was no risk in this performance, and thus no one save the officers of the institution had access to these valuable plates. The paper was peculiar in fabric, and so it was difficult to counterfeit this Bank's issues; which were signed, in the old-fashioned way, by the president and 112