Abel Buell

As a child, Abel Buell apprenticed with a goldsmith. By age 19, he was financially secure and married. In 1755, Buell was apprenticed in Madison, Connecticut, to master silversmith and his future brother-in-law, Ebenezer Chittenden. Chittenden has the distinction of having produced more individual, surviving silver pieces, than any other silversmith in Connecticut.

A New and Correct Map of the United States, 1784 map by Buell

Buell gained notoriety at an early age as a counterfeiter by altering five-pound note engraving plates into larger denomination plates. His sentence was to be branded above the forehead under the scalp, loss of a portion of his right ear, and life in prison, plus forfeiture of all his lands and estates. Because of his youth, he served little time in prison and only the top part of his ear was cut off, but the authorities permitted it to be sewn back on. In 1765, Buell received a patent for a lapidary machine, making him the first Connecticut resident to receive a patent. After creating a ring on that machine, and presenting it to the prosecuting attorney, Buell's counterfeiting sentence was pardoned.[1]

In 1770, Buell moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and went to work for cartographer Bernard Romans. After the American Revolutionary War ended, Buell used the minting machine he had invented to mint the State of Connecticut's first official copper coins. Connecticut coppers were struck from 1785 to 1788 by Buell. Buell engraved the dies for the Connecticut copper coinage as well as the dies for the Fugio cents - America's first coinage. By 1784, Buell cut punches for, and cast his own type and published the first American-made map of the United States. The wall map measured 43 × 48 inches, was printed in four sections, and hand-applied watercolor gave the map its color.[2] In 1789, Buell went to England on behalf of a group of investors to steal the secrets of cotton manufacturing from the British and bring that knowledge back to America. While there, he gained both practical knowledge and a sum of money that allowed him, upon his return, to establish one of Connecticut's first cotton mills.[1] In later life, Buell joined with David Greenleaf to fashion some of the first steel swords manufactures specifically for the U.S. government. These swords were later used in the War of 1812 and were in service through the U.S. Civil War.

Squandering or giving away all the money he earned, Buell died in 1822 at the New Haven Almshouse.[1] Leaving little behind, he is known mostly because of the biography researched and written by Lawrence C. Wroth and a biography by Christopher McDowell.[4] The U.S. Library of Congress received a donation of his rare map of the United States, and on November 11, 2013, mounted an exhibition showcasing it entitled "Mapping a New Nation: Abel Buell’s Map of the United States, 1784". The map was displayed in the Thomas Jefferson Building and online. The exhibition noted that it was the first map to be copyrighted in the United States.[3]

• Hugo, E. Harold; Harlow, T.R. (1955). Abel Buell, a Jack of all trades, & genius extraordinary: his life and trials, illustrated by some of his works, a chart and a writing sheet with an advertisement made from the original copies in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society. Meriden, Conn: The Timothy Press. OCLC 2103801.
• Mackall, L.L. (1930). Abel Buell, the first type cutter and caster in English America: A review. Mount Vernon, N. Y.: Privately printed. OCLC 213729468.
• Wroth, Lawrence C. (1958) [1926]. Abel Buell of Connecticut: Silversmith, Type Founder & Engraver. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. OCLC 3493213.; revised and expanded edition, Middletown, CT: Wesleyah University Press, 1958
• McDowell, Christopher R.: Abel Buell and the History of the Connecticut and Fugio Coinages, Colonial Coin Collectors Club, 2015.

• Media related to Abel Buell at Wikimedia Commons
• Mapping a New Nation: Abel Buell’s Map of the United States, 1784, online exhibition, Library of Congress