Reynolds Bros Mill Company Store

            Scrip Money or Shinplasters

 

 

 

 

   

  Shinplasters that the Reynolds Bros. used shortly  after 1887  to pay mill workers and loggers – instead of US currency in Reynoldston, N. Y.

 

 

 

During the late 1870′s and early 1880′s the Reynolds issued their own currency to pay workers called “shinplasters” pictured above  This currency could only be redeemed at the company store for goods and
supplies.  While the workers initially accepted this symbiotic realtionship over time it led to anger and frustration.  It is clear that the “shinplasters” were a mechanism to control the workers and their families and to limit the capital costs of the early operations. see Company Store

Reynoldston  Song

The focus of the song is the injustice of the use of shinplasters to pay the employees of the Reynolds Bros Mill.   ‘Red cards’ were holds placed on company store accounts preventing customers from incurring further charges. 

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The text of this song is exactly as spoken to us by those who originally sang it  Many of the area’s residents resented the Reynolds family for their seemingly lack of concern for the lot of their workers.   Jim McGovern, a woodsman, from Reynoldston composed the following song that the men sang at the Bordeaux Dance Hall and in the logging camps.  The focus of the song is the injustice of the use of shinplasters to pay the employees of the Reynolds Bros. Mill.   ‘Red cards’ were holds placed on company store accounts preventing customers from incurring further charges. 

“I’ll try my luck in Reynoldston,  

I hear a poor man say. 

I told him to give up that town 

Or he’d surely rue the day. 

For no money in that town you’ll find,

Cannot come your way. 

For the Reynolds’s has got a store 

That takes it day by day. 

You can’t go fishing along their mill pond 

I swear you can’t catch suckers that never spawn.  

They must be friends of Baldy’s, 

I solemnly declare. 

Shinplasters are all worn out 

They can’t get them in line. 

For someone would squeal on them 

And Uncle Sam would join. 

And if he joined their game 

He’d hold the winning hand. 

And then the Reynolds’s would 

Float against the strand. 

When they go up on high 

Their passage for to buy. 

When they meet St.Peter 

Down they will go tumbling 

To a place that’s awful hot. 

Old Frank’ll holler “Blazes” 

Come tumblin’ through the smoke. 

“We’ve gotta save those red cards 

Even if we’re forced to choke.” 

Written by Jim McGovern

Reynolds Mill Worker

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