Beginnings...

Ottawa and the
The First National Bank

OLD SUPERSTITION...
Root crops should be sown when the
moon is rising, and above ground crops when the moon is waning.

There was a new first-quarter moon over Ottawa and LaSalle County when the First National Bank opened for business almost 140 years ago on June 1, 1865. That was an historical highlight of the bank's history, for those were moon-farming days when farmers in this predominantly agricultural community still depended upon the phases of the moon in deciding when to plant their field crops and gardens.

In such a setting, the First National Bank was a pioneer in financial service to the community and a bellwether for other service institutions to follow. Ottawa had a population of only 6,000, being then just 12 years old as an officially chartered city. Farmers had had the U. S. Department of Agriculture for three years, but the department's influence and teachings had not yet spread to the prairies of Illinois. What is now the University of Illinois was not to open for another three years, in 1868, and as the Illinois Industrial University, and Ottawa was not to have a high school for another 13 years. When the school was established in 1878 it was the second one in the State of Illinois.

Ottawa was one of the first Illinois cities to get telephones and electric trains (interurban), but the First National Bank opened for business 12 years before the telephone came to Ottawa in 1877 and six years before the first train came through the city on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. The first train on what is now the Rock Island Lines had come through on only 12 years before the bank's opening. And it was only seven years before the opening of the First National Bank that Ottawa became everlastingly famous as the site of the first in the series of seven Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858.

Looking back at history, we can see Ottawa and the First National Bank starting out together under that June moon in 1865 and continuing as partners ever since.

 

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President Abraham Lincoln was identified with the early history of the bank in two ways...officially and personally. Officially, he signed the National Currency Act, February 25, 1863, which established our national banking system, and the National Bank Act of June 3, 1864, under which the First National was established.

Personally, President Lincoln was considered "one of us" by all Ottawans. He first came to the city as the captain of a company of volunteers from New Salem who were serving in the Blackhawk War of 1832. Historians say that he made five known visits to the city as a soldier, lawyer and politician, including the one of August 21, 1858, for the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

In a more intimate and personal manner, President Lincoln was identified with several Ottawans who later were to become prominent in the early days of the First National Bank. A bridesmaid for the Lincoln-Mary Todd wedding in Springfield on November 4, 1842, was Anna C. Rodney who herself was married the next year to W. H. Cushman, first cashier of the bank, 1865-66.

There is a brief record of financial dealings between Lincoln and Richard Thorne, who was a director of the bank from 1865 to 1867. In 1856 Lincoln wrote to Thorne concerning campaign expenses: "Some little expense bills are on me, and I have concluded to draw on you for $20 now, which is still ten dollars within the authority you gave me."

Finally, fate decreed that President Lincoln was to be both the heroic and tragic figure in national affairs that made momentous history during the founding days of The First National Bank of Ottawa. It was in January, 1865, that the bank was organized, and it was on January 12 that Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, met with an emissary of President Lincoln in Richmond, Virginia, to discuss peace negotiations.

It was in April, 1865, that the charter was issued for The First National Bank of Ottawa. The Confederacy surrendered on April 9. On April 15 President Lincoln died after being shot the night before by the assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

The martyred President was returned to Illinois and his final resting place in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, on May 4, 1865. One era ended, another began, the nation returned to the affairs of government and business, and Ottawa proceeded toward the opening of the First National Bank on Thursday, June 1.

Only 638 national banks had been organized under the national Currency Act (1863) and the National Bank Act (1864) at the time the history of the First National Bank began. That was during the winter of 1864-65 when a number of the leading business men of Ottawa, aware of the banking reform taking place throughout the country, met to discuss the possibilities of a national bank for this community.

Subscription books to raise the capital for such a bank were opened in January 1854, and in due time the required capital of $100,000 was subscribed by about 50 of the most prominent and influential men of the city and surrounding area. In April 1865 a charter was organized by the comptroller of the currency authorizing the First National Bank of Ottawa to begin business. The private bank of W. H. Cushman, including the business and building on the northwest corner of Main and LaSalle Streets, was purchased and opened for business as the newly created bank on June 1, 1865.

William Hickling, who had come to Ottawa from England in 1834, was the first president of the bank from 1865-67. John Armour was the bank's first vice president, and W. H. Cushman, first cashier. Members of the first board of directors were John Amour, Lorenzo Leland I, William Hickling, Milton H. Swift, Washington Bushnell, John Manley, Richard Thorne, Thomas Hurford, Joel W. Armstrong, Isaac Gage and Cornelius M. Van Doren.