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Edited on Sun Aug-17-08 01:20 AM by truedelphi
Want to take a trip in the Way Back machine for a peek at banking in the good old days?? {b}The Spirit Bank {/b} Andreas, A T. History of Cook County, Illinois: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Chicago: A. Andreas, 1884:315-320.
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By September 1 <1852>, an irrepressible conflict had been worked up between the legal and illegal bank interests. At about this date, a new element of financial disturbance was added. All banking in Chicago had, whether legal or illegal, been heretofore conducted on worldly principles and for the object, more or less sordid, of worldly gain. A new departure in the business was inaugurated by Seth Paine & Co.
The senior partner, Seth Paine, was a native of New England, and, when a young man, came West. He left Montpelier, Vt., in April, 1834, in company with Chester Smith, who was at that time an Illinois merchant, being a partner of a Mr. Goss at Walker’s Grove, now Plainfield. He traveled with him on his western journey by stage, canal and schooner as far as Detroit, where they separated, Smith going through to Chicago by stage, and Paine taking the longer but less expensive route in the schooner “Commerce,” by way of the lake. It took his last dollar to pay his deck passage to Chicago, where he arrived after a rough voyage of twelve days, with no capital except health, strength, and a most earnest endeavor to do his work in life according to his eccentric views of right. He was tall and straight. He bad a frank, open countenance, and a pleasing and prepossessing address. His conversational powers were excellent, and as a public speaker he was far above mediocrity. He was good humored, and made friends rapidly. He hired out with the firm of Taylor, Breese & Co., and was for a time a partner. Subsequently be entered into a copartnership with Theron Norton, under the firm name of Paine & Norton. They did a fairly successful business for several years.
Paine sold out to Norton July 1, 1842, and retired from mercantile business in Chicago. He was married in Chicago on Thursday evening, August 25, 1837, to Mrs. Francis Jones, eldest daughter of Major Whitlock. Paine was always a rabid and uncompromising Abolitionist, and, subsequent to the dissolution of the firm of Paine & Norton, became a convert to the socialistic theories of Fourier, went into Lake County, where he bought a large farm, christened the place “Lake Zurich,” and in company with other kindred reformers attempted to carry into practice the socialistic theories he had accepted. How well or poorly he succeeded is not known. It is certain, however, that the enterprise did not prove ruinous nor so discouraging to him as to break his faith in the Fourierite doctrines. He was also for a time a heavy owner and one of the managers of the Illinois River Bank, an unchartered bank at LaSalle, Ill. On the first appearance of what are now termed “spiritual manifestations,” in the form of rappings or knockings at Rochester, N. Y., through the mediumship of the Fox girls, he became deeply interested in the phenomena, and soon after became an ardent convert and earnest advocate and believer in modern spiritualism—so ardent and earnest as to render him a credulous victim of the many designing mountebanks who attached themselves to that much abused and little understood philosophy. The character of Paine was naturally radical, and molded and fashioned by the many outside isms he had embraced, could but impel him to the adoption of modes and methods of action quite at variance with those prevailing, in whatever he might undertake. To his vision the affairs of this world were badly out of joint. They were sadly in need of reorganization, and it required Seth Paine to adjust things properly. So he left “Lake Zurich” and his farm, and returned to Chicago to teach his old friends and the world at large how banking could be carried on in accordance with what he deemed a higher law than the banking law of Illinois—the law of humanity.
THE BANK OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO.—The firm of Seth Paine & Co. was formed early in August, 1852. The following announcement appeared in the Democrat of August 10: “Seth Paine & Co. are about to open a banking and exchange office in Eddy’s new building, adjoining the old post-office, on Clark Street.” The firm was composed of Seth Paine, who put in about $1,100, and Ira B. Eddy, who lent in something over $4,000. The capital stock of the concern never exceeded $6,000, although it was believed that it was backed by capitalists of some strength and character, and at the start it had such financial standing as to obtain quite a number of depositors.
By the middle of October, the bank was opened for business, as appears by the following notice in the weekly paper
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http://tinyurl.com/6jebu6
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