By Phil Devlin
(July 3, 2026) — Born in Killingworth in 1742, Abel Buell was described as “uncommonly ingenious,” and it is easy to see why. Buell’s achievements as a goldsmith, silversmith, jewelry designer, engraver, surveyor, printer, type manufacturer, mint master, textile miller, cartographer, and counterfeiter are impressive. He married into the Chittenden family of Madison and lived to be 80 years old.
Unfortunately, Buell first gained notoriety at an early age as a counterfeiter by altering five-pound note engraving plates into larger denomination plates. His sentence was harsh: 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.
By all accounts, everyone who knew Buell liked him. He had a winning personality that worked in his favor. Because of his youth and his personal appeal, 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. Furthermore, in 1765 Buell received a patent for a lapidary machine, making him the first Connecticut resident ever to receive a patent! After creating a ring on that machine, and presenting it to the prosecuting attorney, Buell’s counterfeiting sentence was pardoned!
After the American Revolution, Buell used the minting machine he had invented to mint the State of Connecticut’s first official copper coins, coins that were struck from 1785 to 1788. Buell engraved the dies for the Connecticut copper coinage as well as the dies for the Fugio cents, America’s first coinage (above) (Fugio cents were designed by Benjamin Franklin and were sometimes called “Franklin cents”).
By 1784, Buell cast his own type and published the first American-made map of the United States (above). The wall map measured 43 × 48 inches, was printed in four sections, and got its color from hand-applied watercolor. That map has the distinction of being the very first map of the new country– the United States of America– ever printed. As such it is very valuable. Very few copies of this map have survived. The last copy to come to auction sold for $2.1 million dollars in 2020! The high bidder then donated the map to the Smithsonian where it is now on display.
Lawrence Wroth wrote the definitive biography of Buell. It was published by the Wesleyan Press in 1959. A photo of my copy of the book appears above. As he was basically penniless when he died, Abel Buell, the famous American silversmith and mapmaker, was buried in an unmarked grave at the historic Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven.
Images above provided by Phil Devlin
