Need help deciphering a document

[damYankee]

I have run across a document I'm having trouble reading, I can make out something about a payment and a marriage.
and the date, any help would be appreciated

 

[RedRover]

I have run across a document I'm having trouble reading, I can make out something about a payment and a marriage.
and the date, any help would be appreciated

Know all Men by these presents that James Ingram and James A. Austen are held and freely bound unto the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the full and just sum of fifty pounds current money for the payment of which will and truly to be made to the Said Commonwealth we bind ourselves our Heirs Aeon and administration jointly and severally firmly by these presents Sealed with our Seals and date this 28th day of October, 1816. The condition of the above obligation is such that if whereas there is a marriage Shortly intended to be had and solemnized, between the above bound James and Miss Nancy Austin daughter of John Austin, whose Consent thereto has been proven.
For which a license hath this Day been issued from the clerks office of the county court of Jefferson County now therefore if there be no legal cause to obstruct said marriage then this obligation to be void else to remain in full force and virtue.

 

[damYankee]

Know all Men by these presents that James Ingram and James A. Austen are held and freely bound unto the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the full and just sum of fifty pounds current money for the payment of which will and truly to be made to the Said Commonwealth we bind ourselves our Heirs Aeon and administration jointly and severally firmly by these presents Sealed with our Seals and date this 28th day of October, 1816. The condition of the above obligation is such that if whereas there is a marriage Shortly entered or to be had and solemnized, between the above bound James and Miss Nancy Austin daughter of John Austin, whose Consent thereto has been proven.
For which a license hath this Day been issued from the clerks office of the county court of Jefferson County now therefore if there be no legal cause to obstruct said marriage then this obligation to be void else to remain in full force and virtue.

Thanks RedRover, They did things differently back then

 

[RedRover]

Thanks RedRover, They did things differently back then

I made a correction in the above. "shortly intended to be had and solemnized."

 

[damYankee]

I made a correction in the above. "shortly intended to be had and solemnized."

I did some crunching, 50 bucks in 1816 would be about 1200 today, I wonder if this is a dowery thing?

 

[RedRover]

Thanks RedRover, They did things differently back then

Apparently it was called an "ante-nuptual marriage settlement."

 

[Old Soldier]

I did some crunching, 50 bucks in 1816 would be about 1200 today, I wonder if this is a dowery thing?

They actually wrote fifty POUNDS, not dollars. Is this a local convention - calling $dollars, £pounds?

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Evidently the marriage bonds used in early years were not the same thing as a marriage license of today. The money pledged in a bond was not actually paid in most cases. There was a difference between a marriage bond, a marriage license, or marriage banns.

Rules and customs differed in different communities/states/countries, but as a general rule, by the 19th century, most people just had their intent to marry announced in church for three consecutive Sundays, then they were free to marry. These were banns of marriage.

Or they could pay for a simple marriage license that was not that expensive and allowed people to bypass the three week wait and marry more quickly.

Marriage bonds, on the other hand, according to sources below, were used by the more well to do, or those aspiring to respectability, as kind of insurance against any sort of scandal. Note the last sentence of the OP document:
"For which a license hath this Day been issued from the clerks office of the county court of Jefferson County now therefore if there be no legal cause to obstruct said marriage then this obligation to be void else to remain in full force and virtue."

So a license has been issued separately and if the marriage goes ahead, and there are no impediments discovered, "this obligation to be void."

Per the source below, a marriage bond -

A marriage bond was like a legal promise to marry, and the fee helped assure that there would be no legal impediments to the marriage because you and your co-signers only had to pay the fee if it was discovered that there was some sort of legal impediment to the marriage. One example of this is when the bride or groom was actually still married to someone else and not free to marry again. Since that didn't happen very often, most of the time, that $1,000 never needed to be paid. another example might be if the bride or groom was legally too young to marry without their parent's or guardian's approval, which they didn't have. If they lied about their age but then the truth was discovered so they couldn't legally marry, that fee would have to be paid.

Understanding Marriage Bonds

Blogging about genealogy, family history, family trees, and all other things ancestry!

genealogical-musings.blogspot.com

Other sources:

18th century marriage customs

When people marry today, they can choose where they marry, be it a religious building, registry office or even by taking their vows whilst sky diving and anywhere in between, as long as an officiat…

georgianera.wordpress.com

Regency Era Customs: Marriage Banns and Licenses

“Reader, How Shall I Marry Him?” ~ Banns and Licenses Until 1823, a single person under the age of one and twenty could not marry without his/her parent’s permission. (Lydia’s elopement and Georgia…

reginajeffers.blog

The Business of Marriage

by Tyler Sherman Imagine meeting someone and experiencing that feeling of overwhelming attraction. You know you want to court and maybe even marry this person, but it isn’t that simple. In colonial America, the process of courting, and ultimately marriage, was somewhat complex and didn’t always...

www.samsonhistorical.com

 

[RedRover]

They actually wrote fifty POUNDS, not dollars. Is this a local convention - calling $dollars, £pounds?

They meant pounds. Prior to 1853 some foreign coin was legal tender in the United States.

Apparently the exchange rate was 1 pound to 4.6 to 4.4 US Dollars in 1816.

The change in value, in the US, related to the change of the coin in England during 1816...

During 1816 the English altered there issue of coin...

"Subsidiary" coin was valued at slightly more on the face than the commodity value of its content.

 

[Old Soldier]

They meant pounds. Prior to 1853 some foreign coin was legal tender in the United States.

View attachment 582987

Apparently the exchange rate was 1 pound to 4.6 to 4.4 US Dollars in 1816.

View attachment 582990

The change in value, in the US, related to the change of the coin in England during 1816...

During 1816 the English altered there issue of coin...

View attachment 582988


"Subsidiary" coin was valued at slightly more on the face than the commodity value of its content.

View attachment 582989

But why would it be used in what looks like a legal document?
Just a note: In Britain, in the old currency before 1971, a crown (5 shillings) was a 'dollar', a half-crown (2/6 - 2 shillings and sixpence) was a 'half-dollar'. The crown coin vanished from circulation long before in 1902 but was struck after that as a commemorative coin only. The term 'dollar' still referred to 5 shillings until decimalisation ("Gizza dollar").

 

[RedRover]

But why would it be used in what looks like a legal document?

According to the laws of Congress apparently, British coin, at least the gold, was legal tender in the United States. From another description:

 

[damYankee]

Evidently the marriage bonds used in early years were not the same thing as a marriage license of today. The money pledged in a bond was not actually paid in most cases. There was a difference between a marriage bond, a marriage license, or marriage banns.

Rules and customs differed in different communities/states/countries, but as a general rule, by the 19th century, most people just had their intent to marry announced in church for three consecutive Sundays, then they were free to marry. These were banns of marriage.

Or they could pay for a simple marriage license that was not that expensive and allowed people to bypass the three week wait and marry more quickly.

Marriage bonds, on the other hand, according to sources below, were used by the more well to do, or those aspiring to respectability, as kind of insurance against any sort of scandal. Note the last sentence of the OP document:
"For which a license hath this Day been issued from the clerks office of the county court of Jefferson County now therefore if there be no legal cause to obstruct said marriage then this obligation to be void else to remain in full force and virtue."

So a license has been issued separately and if the marriage goes ahead, and there are no impediments discovered, "this obligation to be void."

Per the source below, a marriage bond -

A marriage bond was like a legal promise to marry, and the fee helped assure that there would be no legal impediments to the marriage because you and your co-signers only had to pay the fee if it was discovered that there was some sort of legal impediment to the marriage. One example of this is when the bride or groom was actually still married to someone else and not free to marry again. Since that didn't happen very often, most of the time, that $1,000 never needed to be paid. another example might be if the bride or groom was legally too young to marry without their parent's or guardian's approval, which they didn't have. If they lied about their age but then the truth was discovered so they couldn't legally marry, that fee would have to be paid.

Understanding Marriage Bonds

Blogging about genealogy, family history, family trees, and all other things ancestry!

genealogical-musings.blogspot.com

Other sources:

18th century marriage customs

When people marry today, they can choose where they marry, be it a religious building, registry office or even by taking their vows whilst sky diving and anywhere in between, as long as an officiat…

georgianera.wordpress.com

Regency Era Customs: Marriage Banns and Licenses

“Reader, How Shall I Marry Him?” ~ Banns and Licenses Until 1823, a single person under the age of one and twenty could not marry without his/her parent’s permission. (Lydia’s elopement and Georgia…

reginajeffers.blog

The Business of Marriage

by Tyler Sherman Imagine meeting someone and experiencing that feeling of overwhelming attraction. You know you want to court and maybe even marry this person, but it isn’t that simple. In colonial America, the process of courting, and ultimately marriage, was somewhat complex and didn’t always...

www.samsonhistorical.com

Thanks RR, This has been most informative, I appreciate the time you took to help.

 

[damYankee]

They meant pounds. Prior to 1853 some foreign coin was legal tender in the United States.

View attachment 582987

Apparently the exchange rate was 1 pound to 4.6 to 4.4 US Dollars in 1816.

View attachment 582990

The change in value, in the US, related to the change of the coin in England during 1816...

During 1816 the English altered there issue of coin...

View attachment 582988


"Subsidiary" coin was valued at slightly more on the face than the commodity value of its content.

View attachment 582989

Thanks RR, Good Stuff!

 

[Old Soldier]

According to the laws of Congress apparently, British coin, at least the gold, was legal tender in the United States. From another description:

View attachment 582994


View attachment 582995

I am not talking about 'Laws of Congress' or anything. This is a legal document. It states (my emphasis): " ... the full and just sum of fifty pounds current money ..." If it is as you say, then Kentucky was dealing more in £s than $s in 1816. Or did it mean GOLD coin?

Problem is, there were no 'pound coins' - or notes - before 1817. The only gold coin in circulation before 1817 was the guinea (21 shillings).

I can understand the 'foreign coins' bit, as a substitute for the national currency due to lack of local banks, etc., but in a local legal letter?

Can any Kentucky historians help out?

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

If it is as you say, then Kentucky was dealing more in £s than $s in 1819

Will just say that in my (very) little town in Kentucky some ledger books found in the eaves of an old building downtown a couple decades ago had all the accounting notations listed as pounds, not dollars.

The town was founded in 1793 and I was told that in legal and business documents people continued to refer to pounds instead of dollars well into the 1800s. It sounds to me as if that was the conventional wording even though they would have actually been dealing with dollars. But that is just an observation and guess on my part.

 

[RedRover]

I am not talking about 'Laws of Congress' or anything. This is a legal document. It states (my emphasis): " ... the full and just sum of fifty pounds current money ..." If it is as you say, then Kentucky was dealing more in £s than $s in 1816. Or did it mean GOLD coin?

Problem is, there were no 'pound coins' - or notes - before 1817. The only gold coin in circulation before 1817 was the guinea (21 shillings).

Indeed the guinea. From Nile's Philadelphia Register in 1819, in the USA a shilling was worth, in dollars, 22 cents and 2 mills (mills being 1/1000 of a dollar). A guinea rated at 4 dollars, 66 cents, and 7 mills. The pound sterling at 4 dollars and 44 cents.

Guineas were not unknown in Kentucky.

I can understand the 'foreign coins' bit, as a substitute for the national currency due to lack of local banks, etc., but in a local legal letter?

Can any Kentucky historians help out?

The laws of Congress bound the people of Kentucky in 1816. The Constitution (1787) gave Congress authority "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin..." As noted above, a British pound was rated at over four dollars, and any subdivision of the pound at a like valuation at that rate.

The Constitution barred the States from coining money, etc., and held that they could not "make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."

From an 1832 Kentucky Court of Appeals digest, it notes that the "current money" of Kentucky was gold and silver, irrespective of the various "currency" legal there, including bank notes, etc.

From an Arkansas case, explaining that "current money" of a State, was distinct from "currency" or mere circulating medium.

Here is an 1821 British explanation of the value of pounds sterling in Kentucky at that time...

Will just say that in my (very) little town in Kentucky some ledger books found in the eaves of an old building downtown a couple decades ago had all the accounting notations listed as pounds, not dollars.

The town was founded in 1793 and I was told that in legal and business documents people continued to refer to pounds instead of dollars well into the 1800s. It sounds to me as if that was the conventional wording even though they would have actually been dealing with dollars. But that is just an observation and guess on my part.

From an 1814 book of Kentucky statutes, a notice that US Dollars could also be employed as current money (of course), besides pounds.

Pounds could also serve as current money in Kentucky at that time...

The volume of Kentucky statutes quotes numbers of Kentucky laws regarding the use of pounds or dollars.

...