Bank of North America
 Bank of North America's original location at 307 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia | |
| Company type |
|
|---|---|
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | December 31, 1781, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Founders | Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, William Bingham, and others |
| Fate | Merger |
| Successor |
|
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , United States |
Area served | United States |
Key people |
|
The Bank of North America was the first chartered bank in the United States, and served as the country's first de facto central bank.[1] Chartered by the Congress of the Confederation on May 26, 1781, and opened in Philadelphia on January 7, 1782.[2][3][4]
The bank's founding was based on a plan presented by Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris on May 17, 1781,[5] including recommendations by Revolutionary-era Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, who was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury by George Washington. Although Hamilton later noted the bank's "essential" contribution to the American Revolutionary War, the Pennsylvania government objected to its privileges and reincorporated it under state law, making it unsuitable as a national bank under the U.S. Constitution. Congress instead chartered the First Bank of the United States, a new bank, in 1791, while the Bank of North America continued as a private concern.
Revolutionary war period
Congressional charter
In May 1781, Alexander Hamilton revealed that he had recommended Robert Morris for the position of Superintendent of Finance of the United States the previous summer when the constitution of the Articles of Confederation-era executive was being solidified. He also proceeded to lay out a proposal for a national bank that would serve as a de facto central bank.
Morris corresponded with Hamilton previously on the subject of funding the war, and immediately drafted a legislative proposal based on Hamilton's suggestion and submitted it to the Congress. Morris persuaded Congress to charter the Bank of North America, the first private commercial bank in the United States.[7] His friend, Dr. Hugh Shiell, paid £5000 to the capital stock.[8]
Stock offering
The original charter as outlined by Hamilton called for the disbursement of 1,000 shares priced at $400 each.
Officers
Thomas Willing, who served two terms as mayor of Philadelphia and was a partner with Morris in an import-export firm that once dominated the city's slave trade,[14] was named the bank's first president. He held that office from 1781 to 1791, being succeeded by John Nixon, and moving immediately on to become the first president of the First Bank of the United States, a position he held from 1791 to 1807.[15][16]
Banknotes
The bank issued its own notes that superseded the troubled
Private bank
In the economic turmoil that followed the
After the passage of the
The bank merged in 1923 with the Commercial Trust Company to become the Bank of North America and Trust Company, which merged in 1929 with the Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities. That company, operating as the Pennsylvania Company for Banking and Trust, merged with the First National Bank in 1955 to become The First Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Company, which was acquired by CoreStates Financial Corporation in 1991, by First Union/Wachovia in 1998, and by Wells Fargo in 2008.[3]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0765607300. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ^ a b c Lewis, Lawrence Jr. (1882). A History of the Bank of North America, the First Bank Chartered in the United States. J. B. Lippincott & Co. pp. 28, 35.
- ^ a b Smith, Robert F. "Bank of North America". Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ^ Michener, John H. (1906). The Bank of North America, Philadelphia, a national bank, founded 1781. New York: R. G. Cooke, Inc. p. 37. HG21613.P54. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ^ "Establishing a National Bank". Journals of the Continental Congress. 20. U.S. Government Printing Office: 546–549. 1912. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0896893269.
- ^ a b Knox, John Jay (1900). Rhodes, Bradford; Youngman, Elmer Haskell (eds.). A History of Banking in the United States. B. Rhodes & Company. p. 40. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ^ Harris, Joseph Smith (January 1, 1903). Record of the Harris family descended from John Harris, born in 1680 in Wiltshire, England. Dalcassian Publishing Company.
- ^ Alberts 1969, p. 106
- ISBN 978-0-231-08905-0.
- ^ Alberts 1969, pp. 435
- OCLC 563689565. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-986-26102-2.
- ^ Fischer, David Hackett (2022). African Founders. p. 220.
- ^ "WILLING, Thomas, (1731–1821)". Biographical Information of the United States Congress. US Congress. June 11, 2009. Retrieved June 11, 2009.
- ^ National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. James T. White & Co. 1898. p. 83.
- ^ Alberts 1969, p. 111
Further reading
- ISBN 978-1416570912.
External links
- The Bank of North America, Philadelphia, a National Bank, Founded 1781: The Story of Its Progress through the Last Quarter of a Century, 1881–1906, by Robert Grier Cooke Incorporated (1906).
- Debates and Proceedings of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, on the Memorials Praying a Repeal of Suspension of the Law Annulling the Charter of the Bank (ed. Mathew Carey, 1786).
- A History of the Bank of North America, the First Bank Chartered in the United States, by Lawrence Lewis, Jr. (J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1882).
- Legislative and Documentary History of the Bank of the United States: Including the Original Bank of North America, by Matthew St. Clair Clarke and David A. Hall. This collection of documents was aimed to include the entire proceedings, debates, and resolutions of Congress relating to the Bank of North America, the First (1791–1811) Bank of the United States, and the Second (1816–1836) Bank of the United States. These documents were compiled four years before the closing of the Second Bank.
- Legislative and Documentary History of the Banks of the United States, from the Time of Establishing the Bank of North America, 1781, to October 1834; with Notes and Comments, by R. K. Moulton. An attempt to compile all the public documents considered to be essential in attaining a thorough knowledge of the national banking operations of the United States, from 1781 to 1834.
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