Obsolete Currency 3 Dollar Polar Bear Note The Continental Bank, Boston, Massachusetts
Top center, ‘’The White Bear’’ as engraved by DeWitt Clinton Hay after Felix O.C. Darley. Within the pack ice, four men in small boat about to be turned over by a polar bear. Lower left, Massachusetts bank seal. Lower right, General Warren. Machine numbered 66. Listed as No. 24 in 100 Greatest American Currency Notes by Dave Bowers and David Sundman.
Dr. Joseph Warren (June 11, 1741 – June 17, 1775) was an American doctor who played a leading role in American Patriot organizations in Boston in early days of the American Revolution, eventually serving as president of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Warren enlisted Paul Revere and William Dawes on April 18, 1775, to leave Boston and spread the alarm that the British garrison in Boston was setting out to raid the town of Concord and arrest rebel leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Warren participated in the next day's Battles of Lexington and Concord, which are commonly considered to be the opening engagements of the American Revolutionary War.
Warren had been commissioned a Major General in the colony's militia shortly before the June 17, 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill. Rather than exercising his rank, Warren served in the battle as a private soldier, and was killed in combat when British troops stormed the redoubt atop Breed's Hill. His death, immortalized in John Trumbull's painting, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775, galvanized the rebel forces, and he has been memorialized in many place names in the United States.