During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, numerous branches of the Shipley family maintained farms located in the fourth and fifth districts of Anne Arundel County.
Between the 1870s and the 1930s, Anne Arundel County witnessed a growth in farm production of fruits and vegetables. Farmers used tokens to pay seasonal laborers for harvesting the crops. These tokens, called pickers' checks, were exchanged for cash at intervals during the course of the season or were directly exchanged for goods at nearby stores. Evidence indicates that most of the pickers in Anne Arundel County were immigrants of Polish or other Eastern European descent, who lived south of Pratt Street in the Fells Point neighborhood of East Baltimore.
E. Roderick Shipley (1915 - 1984) took an active interest in collecting brass pickers' checks, many of which belonged to his relatives' farms. He was a dental surgeon and associate professor of physiology at the University of Maryland.
"Fairmont, 1828 -- Home of Richard Luther and Annie L. Shipley, Anne Arundel County, Maryland."
Article describing local interest in the historical brass pickers' checks, published in Baltimore's The Sun Magazine, December 14, 1975.
Actual size of average brass pickers' checks. Different shaped checks were used for different crops such as peas, beans, and strawberries.
Tokens marked L.R.S. came from the farm of Larkin Rodulphus Shipley between the 1870s and 1940s. It is not always clear whether the numbers on the tokens represented amounts of money owed or amounts of crops picked.
