2021 Annual Meeting - Museum of Old Newbury

98 High Street,Newburyport MA 01950

08 September, 2021

Description

See our new acquisitions and meet Executive Director 
Bethany Groff Dorau. Catch up with old friends while checking out the museum's newest acquisitions and executive director. Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021 6:30 p.m. | Refreshments 7:00 p.m. | Meeting 7:30 p.m. | What’s New @ the MOON Space is limited, please reserve your spot now. This is a free event for members only. Registration is required. Donations are accepted and can be made here. Not a member? Become one here. About the Perkins Mint: The Perkins Engraving and Printing Plant was built for Jacob Perkins in 1808 during the height of Newburyport’s prosperity. Perkins was a silversmith, engraver, scientist and inventor of some renown. This building housed his engraving and printing operations in which currency for New England was printed from 1808 through the 1820s. Perkins’s success was due to his creating a process which prohibited the counterfeiting of early paper currency. In 1809, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a Special Act mandating that all paper money in the state be printed by Jacob Perkins’s stereotype steel plates. This was an effort both to prevent counterfeiting as well as to promote more uniformity in the design of bank bills. By 1815, the Federal government recognized Perkins’s stereotype steel plates as the finest available for bank note engraving, and they were used for printing all notes of the new Second National Bank of the United States. Perkins resided in Philadelphia for several years to oversee the machines and the printing of our first United States currency. In 2017, the Museum of Old Newbury opened its first exhibition in the Perkins Printing and Engraving Plant called Captains and Currency. It currently is used for special events, as well. The Museum of Old Newbury preserves and interprets the history of “Old Newbury” including Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury from pre-settlement to the present. Founded in 1877, the Museum carries out its mission through the preservation and administration of the Cushing House, the Perkins Engraving Plant, and other historic structures on its High Street campus and furthers its purpose through lectures, exhibitions, educational programs, publications, and research.