Originally Posted by
Jazzerman
There is a reason for this, and it's an old one that you've already alluded to in your question. In colonial America people would typically exchange money based on the value of the metal contained in the coinage. This is one reason why English, Spanish, and French coinage existed in colonial America. Early colonials would typically take something like a Spanish 8 Reale silver coin, cut and divide it up into smaller pieces, and then use those smaller pieces to pay for goods and services that were cheaper than the value of the full 8 Reale piece. Now in accordance with this, the reason we typically use the term "penny" when referencing a "cent" is because in colonial times, and in particular before 1793 (the first mass minting of official US Cents), the use of the English Penny was very typical and was even more readily used than French or Spanish currencies. It's more of a passed-down-through-generations linguistical term that most people don't know actually describes our colonial era use of actual English pennies. "Pence" is a relatively new term for currency and it's actually the English plural form of the word "penny", whereas the "penny" has been in use since the 7th or 8th Century, and was originally made of Silver.
It's purely a historically linguistical and cultural epitaph, if you will, to the original colonies that passed the term down to their ancenstors.
Thank you, that was very interesting, and much as I expected. I am still a little surprised that, with the strong anti-English sentiments after the revolution, and around the time of the war of 1812, that reminders of British America remained current to this day. 
I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. E.M. Forster
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