Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 24

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856

USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I > Part 24

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000, and failed December 31, 1898. There are now -- 1899-seven banking houses in St. Joseph. The Bank of St. Joseph was organ- ized in 1874 by James N. Burnes and Calvin F. Burnes. Later it bought the business of the German Savings, and the two banks became the National Bank of St. Joseph, in 1883. It has a capital stock of $100,000 and a surplus of $131,000, with deposits amounting to $3,000,- 000. Its officers are L. C. Burnes, president ; W. M. Wyeth and James N. Burnes, Jr., vice presidents ; E. D. McAlister, assistant cashier. The Merchants' Bank was organized in 1878 as the successor of the First National Bank. Its capital stock has been increased from $50,- 000 to $200,000. The officers and directors are Louis Boder, president : J. H. Robison, vice president ; Thomas W. Evans, cashier ; Samuel Westheimer, James M. Wilson, W. H. Griffith and R. W. McDonald. October 4, 1897, this bank had in its vaults $378,000 and a line of deposits amounting to $844,000. The German American Bank was organized June 6, 1887, with a capital of $50,000, which has since been increased to $100,000. Its officers and directors are Henry Krug, president ; Henry Krug, Jr., vice president; J. G. Schneider, vice president; O. J. Albrecht, cashier ; H. Schneider, John Donovan, Jr., and H. G. Buckingham. The growth of this bank has been remarkable and its business is rapidly increasing. In 1897 it had $180,000 cash in its vaults, and its deposits amounted to $631 .- 000. The banking house of Tootle, Lemon & Co. is a large private concern, organized in July, 1889, by Thomas E. Tootle, John S. Lemon, James McCord and Samuel Nave. In April, 1893, Milton Tootle, Jr., became a mem- ber of the firm, and in 1897, on account of ill health, Thomas E. Tootle disposed of his in- terest. In December of the same year the interests of Messrs. McCord and Nave were purchased by the other partners, and Graham G. Lacy, who is now cashier, became a mem- ber of the firm. The nominal capital is $50,- 000, but the financial responsibility of the members of the firm makes the capital equal to $3,000,000. This bank has nearly $800,000 cash in its vaults, with a line of deposits reach- ing $1,800.000. The bank has had a phenom- enal growth, the deposits having increased twenty-fold. The Park Bank was organized in 1889 in a new and growing part of the city. It has paid 8 per cent in annual dividends. Its officers are B. B. Frazer, president ; Jo Han-

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sen, vice president : C. L. Wiehl, cashier. The directors are A. P. Clayton, W. H. Prindle, William Morrison. John Gooding, Christian Bock, M. C. Powell and John F. Merriam. This bank has a capital of $10,000, with $150,- ooo in deposits. The First National Bank of Buchanan County has a capital of $250,000. Stephen C. Woodson was its first president. The present officers and directors are J. M. Ford, president ; J. W. McAlister, cashier ; R. L. McDonald, Edward C. Smith, Louis Hax. H. K. Judd, B. B. Frazer, A. P. Clayton and A. Kirkpatrick. In 1897 this bank had in its vaults $1,075,000 in cash and deposits amount- ing to $2,228,000. It held $150,000 in United States 4 per cent bonds. The business of the bank is constantly increasing. The Stock Yards Bank was organized March 15. 1898. with a capital of $50,000. Its officers are Gordon Jones, president; Ernest Lindsay, vice president ; Charles E. Waite, cashier ; di- rectors, John Donovan, Jr., and Joseph A. Maxwell. The deposits of this bank amount to $490,000, and the amount of cash in the vaults is $290,000.

The aggregate amounts of the resources and liabilities of the seven banks of St. Joseph for April, 1899, were as follows :

RESOURCES.

Loans $5.845.368 92

Overdrafts .

50,742 40

Bonds and stocks

335,116 67

Real estate and fixtures

106,415 59

Cash, etc.

3.965.653 24

$10.303.296 82

LIABILITIES.

Capital

$ 690,000 00

Surplus

107,250 00

Circulation

99,000 00

Undivided profits

104,663 86

Deposits

9.302.382 96

$10.303,206 82

The clearings are the total amount of checks and drafts on the other banks cashed by or deposited in each bank. The amount of the clearings in 1877 was $23,000,000, while in 1807 they were $67,000,000, or three times greater than twenty years before. The clear- ings of 1898 were $124,000,000, an increase of 85 per cent over the preceding year. The

increase of the first quarter of 1899 over the same period of 1898 was 39 per cent. While these figures are no index of the volume of business, they show an increasing business activity.

THOMAS W. EVANS.

Banks and Banking in St. Louis. -It was many years after the trading-post of St. Louis was established by Laclede and the Chouteaus before the people of the village felt the need of banks. The population grew so slowly at first that in 1800, thirty-six years after the settlement was begun, it was less than one thou- sand, and the conditions of trade were so rude and primitive as not to call for the complex machinery through which modern transac- tions are conducted. What business there was consisted in barter, the simple exchange of one commodity for another, with mutual delivery. For a time money was almost un- known. The post was too far remote from the Eastern cities to permit the circulation of bank notes issued there; and as to gold and even silver coins, they were little less than curiosities down to the beginning of the nine- teenth century. Fur trading was the chief interest of the post, and it not only supplied a livelihood to the population but furnished something that answered very well in the place of money also. All skins that were good enough for the fur trade-beaver, bear, buf- falo, wolf, lynx, otter, deer, elk and raccoon- were good enough for currency, though the skins that afforded the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight were preferred. The very best were beaver and otter, on ac- count of the rich fur they bore. The skin and fur currency of those times was not kept in vaults, but in warehouses and sheds, packed and tied up in bales, and carefully counted. Deer skins were the standard, because, while they were abundant, they always had a steady value. At first the furs were sent to New Orleans on barges, afterward to Mackinaw. Detroit and Montreal, and later still to Phila- delphia. The shipments were then drawn against, returns being chiefly in dry goods, sugar, coffee, and hardware. But it was a slow process. It took from six to eight months to receive returns from New Orleans. a year to a year and a half from Montreal ; and when a very precious package of furs was shipped to London, the returns in foreign goods would not reach St. Louis for three, and

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BANKS AND BANKING IN ST. LOUIS.

sometimes four, years. After the transfer of St. Louis, along with the Territory of Upper Louisiana, to the United States, intercourse with the Ohio River towns increased, the ex- changes being usually effected in deer skins, or their equivalent in other peltries. St. Louis had no whisky, salt, iron, steel, lead, nor cloth goods of any kind, but it had an abundance of barter money in the bales of merchantable furs continually received by its trading houses; and the trade in lead with Ste. Genevieve, and in the commodities which the

Ohio River towns were able to supply, easily brought about shipping bills and exchange drafts for the conduct of the business. The reputation of the prosperous St. Louis fur traders extended to all places with which they dealt, and promise notes issued by them for their own convenience were good current money, not only among the hunting and trap- ping people all over the Northwest but in the towns and settlements south and east of the

post. After the cession, in 1803, another kind of paper currency was added to the money system-bills drawn at New Orleans on the United States Treasury to pay the civil of-

ficers and military at St. Louis. It is no wonder, then, that with these facilities for the

transaction of its exchanges with the outside world St. Louis managed to get along with- out a bank for half a century after it was founded. It was not until 1816 that the lack of such an institution was felt to be a reproach to the thriving town of 3.500 population into which the trading post had developed, and it was in that year that the first bank was opened. It was called the "Bank of St. Louis," and the following year the Bank of Missouri, with a capital of $250,000, was established. The first experiments in banking in a new city are rarely attended with permanent success, and these two banks were not exceptions. They had a good effect in stimulating business and reducing it to the discipline of established regulations, and in facilitating exchanges with outside points; but the first one failed, after three years, through unfortunate speculative investments, followed by divisions among its directors ; and the other, though lasting for several years longer, at last disappeared also. Some of the notes of the Bank of St. Louis have been preserved. One of these reads as follows: "The President, Directors & Co. of the Bank of St. Louis promise to pay Five Dollars to Fowler, or Bearer, on demand.

St. Louis, Missouri Territory, June 18, 1817. S. Hammond, President; John B. Smith, Cashier." The vignette shows a beaver-trap, with a beaver caught in it-a considerate tribute to the fur trade, which had so much to do with the founding and early prosperity of St. Louis. This bank was located on the first floor of a house, the upper story of which was a dwelling, on Main Street, below Mar- ket. Some of the bills-ones, threes, fives and twenties-of the Bank of Missouri are also still preserved in frames as relics of the early history of St. Louis. One of them bears the following inscription: "The President, Di- rectors & Co. of the Bank of Missouri prom- ise to pay One Dollar on demand, at their office of Deposit and Discount in Ste. Gene- vieve, to William Shannon, President thereof, or to the Bearer. St. Louis, October 1, 1818. Aug. Chouteau, President ; Jolin Dales. . Cashier." The fives of this bank show in the vignette a bust of Jefferson, with a liberty cap, behind it four ships in a harbor, and in the background mountains with a sunrise. This bank was located on the first floor of Auguste Chouteau's mansion, on the west side of Main Street, between Market and Chestnut. In 1829 a branch of the United States Bank at Philadelphia was established in St. Louis, with Colonel John O'Fallon as president, who was chosen to the place for four years in suc- cession. This bank was prudently managed and was of great service to business, but when the bill to extend the charter of the parent bank was vetoed by President Jackson in 1832, the St. Louis branch shared the fate of the parent and was wound up. The veto of the United States Bank was sharply felt in St. Louis and provoked a strong protest from leading citizens. A meeting was held July 24, 1832, at which William Carr Lane pre- sided, with James L. Murray as secretary, and Edward Bates, Pierre Chouteau, Jr., George Collier, Thornton Grimsley, Henry S. Geyer, and N. Ranney as committee on reso- lutions, and which declared that "we receive with deep mortification and regret the Presi- dent's veto of the bill to continue for a time the charter of the Bank of the United States." But the President was not without many friends in St. Louis, who would not permit this expression to go unchallenged ; and therefore a second meeting was held the evening of the same day, which was presided over by Dr. Samuel Merry, with William Milburn secre-

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BANKS AND BANKING IN ST. LOUIS.

tary, and E. Dobyns, John Shade, James C. Lynch, L. Brown, B. W. Ayres, J. H. Bald- win and P. Taylor, committee on resolutions. This meeting approved the veto and resolved that "we view the stand which General Jack- son has taken against the moneyed powers of Europe and America as a mark of firmness and patriotism not surpassed by any patriot or statesman since the light of liberty first dawned upon our country." But St. Louis had now become a vigorous city of six thou- sand population, with steamboats running to New Orleans, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg, and to Galena, and when occasion required, to the towns on the Missouri River, and its expanding trade demanded additional means and agencies for its accommodation. A Cincinnati institution, called the Commer- cial Agency, established a branch in the city in 1836, which became the agent through which the government made its payments, and which contributed somewhat to the expediting of business : but it was recognized that some- thing more than branches and agencies of outside institutions was needed in the State of Missouri and its chief city. Therefore, in 1837, when the population of the city had be- come twelve thousand, the Bank of the State of Missouri was established, under a charter from the State, with a capital of $5,000,000, one-third belonging to the State, which had the right to name several of the directors. The bank went into operation April 11, 1837, with John Brady Smith as president, and Hugh O'Neill, Edward Walsh, Samuel S. Reyburn, Edward Dobyns, William L. Sub- lett, and John O'Fallon for directors. Its ample capital, the support of the State, the wide area served by it-virtually the whole country west of the Mississippi-and the sound, conservative spirit that distinguished its management, made it a power from the be- ginning. It was a bank of issue, and its notes were, for thirty years, not only as good as gold, but in the mountains, among trappers and hunters, and at military posts among officers and soldiers, esteemed better than gold. When trade was opened with New Mexico and Chihuahua, before the Mexican War, they circulated in those countries ; and when, on the discovery of gold in California, the overland migration set in, they were car- ried to the Pacific Coast and were held in as high favor there as within sight of the bank from which they were issued. It was the only

bank of issue in St. Louis for twenty years, and the only bank of any kind until the Boat- men's Saving Institution was opened, in 1847, although in 1837, the year in which it was opened, the Chamber of Commerce addressed a petition to Congress in favor of the estab- lishment of a national bank, and the mer- chants of the city never relaxed their efforts to secure additional banking facilities. The need of such facilities grew more pressing as the business of St. Louis increased. The war with Mexico, in 1846, provoked an activity in the West that had never been witnessed be- fore. The river's were alive with boats con- veying troops and supplies to New Orleans, and St. Louis was the outfitting point for the operations against New Mexico and Utah. It was the beginning of a trade which, after the close of the war, expanded into still larger proportions, when the Mormons settled in Utah, followed by the freighting business from Independence and St. Joseph to the army posts and settlements in the far West, and later still, by the great emigration to Cali- fornia, in 1849. The need of more money to meet the requirements of the prodigious bus- iness in the West, which found a converging point at St. Louis, was severely felt, and at- tempts were made to meet it by the issuing of notes by private bankers of good reputa- tion and credit, and later through the "wild cat" system of banks opened in Illinois, In- diana, and other Western States. These banks, established under a free banking law, authorized to emit notes on State bonds, territory bonds, county bonds, city bonds, and township bonds, were usually located in obscure, out-of-the-way towns and villages, difficult of access, to avoid the presentation of their notes for redemption. Notwithstanding this, the greed for something in the shape of money to meet the demands of legitimate bus- iness and the nearly as great demands of reckless speculation was so great that the "wild cat" currency circulated freely in the West and Northwest, and was poured into St. Louis in payment for the goods, manufactures and supplies furnished by its merchants. This currency went at a discount of three to fifty per cent, according to the measure of dis- trust of . the bank issuing the note, or the amount of profit demanded by the brokers who dealt in them ; and as the rates of discount on them were constantly varying, the brokers were accustomed to issue, once a month and

127

BANKS AND BANKING IN ST. LOUIS.

sometimes oftener, counterfeit detectors, quot- ing the value of the notes of all banks on the first of the month. A bank note would some- times lose half its face value, or become en- tirely worthless, during the few days a person carried it in his pocket; and the contents of a merchant's cash-drawer might suffer a loss of five to ten per cent in a single day. There were no "wild cat" banks in Missouri, but there was a large quantity of "wild cat" currency in the State, poured in from the surrounding States in the course of trade; and it was partly as a measure of self-defense against this con- dition of things, and partly to supply the mer- chants and manufacturers of St. Louis with the accommodations which the old bank of the State took no pains to furnish, that the Legis- lature of the State. in 1857, on the earnest representations of the business interests, made provisions for a general banking system to supply the people with a sound and safe cur- rency of bank notes payable in specie on de- mand. The basis of the system was authority to issue two dollars in paper to one of paid-up capital, the notes to be redeemable on presen- tation. The banks were subject to examina- tion by a commissioner, and were required to make regular and full reports of their con- dition. The form of these reports has been maintained ever since, and is strictly observed by all State banks to this day. Under this general law, six banks were organized in St. Louis : The Merchants', the Mechanics', the Southern, the Exchange, the Union, and the Bank of St. Louis-and the Farmers' Bank was organized at Lexington. Three of the six St. Louis banks still exist : the Mechanics', in its original form ; the Merchants', in the Mer- chants'-Laclede National; and the Southern. in the Third National; and their forty odd years' record is a history of honor, usefulness and prosperity. Their notes, which at once came into general circulation, served two good purposes ; they supplied the people with a sound, acceptable and abundant cur- rency that passed freely from hand to hand, without scrutiny and distrust, and they ex- pelled the "wild cat" paper of neighboring States and Territories that had become a nuisance, endured only because there was nothing to take its place. When the national banking system was established by Congress, in 1862, the notes of the Missouri banks dis- appeared before the tax of ten per cent which the national banking law imposed on them;

and the St. Louis banks of issue were trans- formed, one by one, into national banks-all except the Mechanics', which, though shorn of its circulation, remained and still remains a State bank, under its original incorporation, and with a record of honorable management. efficient service to the community, and profit to its stockholders, of which St. Louis may well be proud.

Ten years before these banks were char- tered the Boatmen's Saving Institution, as al- ready stated, had been established. It had no authority to issue bills, being, as its name indicates, a savings bank, having no capital stock. Its stockholders were its depositors, and the profits were divided pro rata among those who, during the first six months, should deposit $100 and upwards and allow the same to remain undisturbed until the expiration of the charter, in twenty years. The name of the institution was a recognition of the pre- eminence of the river interests of that day, when one-sixth of the population of St. Louis was connected with and dependent upon the river business. The name was changed in 1873 to the Boatmen's Saving Bank, and again in 1890 to the Boatmen's Bank; but from the beginning, its career has been one of uninterrupted prosperity and usefulness-its prosperity being illustrated in its progress from the first location in a small house, No. 16 Locust Street, at a rental of $150 a year, to the present stately building on the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Washington Avenue, built by itself and first occupied in 1891, and its usefulness attested by the large measure of popular confidence it has en- joyed throughout the more than fifty years of its existence. A feature of the good fortune that has attended this bank is the fact that it has had but three presidents-Adam L. Mills, from 1847 to 1854; Sullivan Blood, from 1854 to 1871 ; and Rufus J. Lackland, the present incumbent (1899), who, upon Mr. Blood's resignation in 1871, was chosen to succeed him and has held the position continuously for twenty-eight years. Of its cashiers, two have served in that capacity throughout forty-three of the bank's fifty-two years -- Charles Hodgman, fourteen, and William H. Thomson, the present incumbent, twenty- nine years. Mr. Lackland has been unin- terruptedly connected with the bank for forty- five years, and Mr. Thomson for forty-two years.

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BANKS AND BANKING IN ST. LOUIS.

In the year 1855 the State Savings In- stitution was established and began business in the building on the southeast corner of Main and Vine Streets, which had been the seat of the famous banking house of Page, Bacon & Co. Although possessing the name of "Savings," it was from the beginning an active business bank, and distinguished not less for prudent management than for its prompt liberality in furthering healthful en- terprise. Its first three successive presidents ; R. M. Henning, John How, and John J. Roe, were successful merchants, and its fourth presi- dent, Charles Parsons, has a national reputa- tion as an authority on finance and banking. In 1859 its name was changed to the State Savings Association ; later it took the very ap- propriate title of State Bank, and is now the State National Bank.

In 1857 an institution called the St. Louis Building & Savings Association, with an authorized capital of $500,000 and with certain banking privileges, was organized, with Mar- shall Brotherton as president, and A. P. Ladew cashier. It was admirably managed and prosperity attended it from the beginning. In 1869 it took the name of Bank of Com- merce, and subsequently became a national bank. Its earnings were allowed to accumu- late until 1878, when they amounted to $775,000 ; and in 1898 its capital and surplus amounted to $4,011,474, and its deposits to $16.552,774.

In 1866 the old Bank of the State of Mis- souri, which, notwithstanding its great capital, had not kept pace with the spirit of the age, and was being outstripped by the newer insti- tutions in active usefulness, underwent a change. The State sold its stock to a com- bination of capitalists, with Captain James B. Eads at the head, who transformed it into a national bank, with eight branches in the State, and removed it from its old quarters on the east side of Main Street, between Wash- ington and Lucas Avenues, to the northwest corner of Third and Pine. The change was not followed by the brighter career of useful- ness that had been confidently expected. In 1876 it had suffered such an impairment of its resources through ill advised investments that it was found advisable to reduce its capital from $3.410,300 to $2,500,000, and a few years later it passed out of existence.

In the twenty years from 1837 to 1857 there were but two chartered banks in the city, and

only one of them, the Bank of the State of Mis- souri, with the authority to emit bills. But this left a free field for private bankers, and there were many of these, located chiefly on Main Street, who did a large and profitable business, carrying the bulk of the deposits, and supplying to business men the accommoda- tions which they required in their operations. The most conspicuous and powerful of these private firms was Page, Bacon & Co., the lead- ing members of which were Daniel D. Page, an ex-mayor of the city, and his son-in-law, Henry D. Bacon. The house was located at the southeast corner of Main and Vine Streets, and, with its branch in San Francisco, did a large and profitable business for many years; but, unfortunately, it undertook the building of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad, and when the panic of 1855 came its resources were tied up in that enterprise and unavailable. and there was no alternative but failure. An- other leading firm of bankers was Lucas, Turner & Co., with a branch in San Francisco, of which W. T. Sherman. afterward the dis- tinguished general, was a member ; and others were L. A. Benoist & Co., John J. Anderson & Co., Darby, Barksdale & Co., Bogy, Milten- berger & Co., B. M. Runyon & Co., Tesson & Dangen, Loker & Renick, E. W. Clark & Co., and Allen, Copp & Nesbit.

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Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 24

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors Number of Pages: 856

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856