1840 Bank of Lyons Wayne County, New York

Description

Title: - 1840 – Bank of Lyons, Wayne County, NY; Haxby NY-1295 G6.
The town of Lyons, incorporated on 1 March 1811, was named after Lyon, France. It became the county seat of Wayne County, which was formed on 11 April 1823 from lands previously in Ontario and Seneca Counties.
There was failed interest in establishing a Bank of Lyons as early as April 1831 when the House of Assembly voted against the petition for a bank there. Several months later in January 1832 another petition was presented to the Assembly for consideration, but the proposed bank was repeatedly rejected until January 1836. The legislature debated the issue until on 17 May 1836 the bill passed and incorporation of the Bank of Lyons with capital of 0,000.
On 10 August 1836 at a meeting of the Bank of Lyons’ stockholders at the courthouse the following directors were elected: Ruben H. Foster, John Adams, Abraham L. Beaumont, Samuel Hecox, Jonas S. Towar, William Sisson, Daniel Chapman, Jacob Leach, Newel Taft, James P. Bartle, Rob. Alsop, W. H. Adams, and Herman Jenkins. The bank opened on Monday, 17 October 1836 and commenced business in a room of a brick building located on Williams St. The first president was Reuben H. Foster and first cashier was Thaddeus Bowman Bigelow, who signed a large number of notes on that date. Mr. Bigelow was a 1820 Harvard graduate, who was a successful merchant, served in the cashier position for about a year, when William H. Lacey was appointed to that position.
Mr. Foster was a successful farmer and a politically active republican. He served in the war of 1812; was elected sheriff in November 1825 (served three years); was appointed postmaster of Lyons from 1832 to 1842; and was elected in 1835 to the Assembly of the State Legislature representing Wayne County.
The bank was reasonably successful until the panic of 1837 set off a major depression. The financial impact was slow to hit the Bank of Lyons, but by November 1839 an injunction was placed on it. By the end of February 1840 some newspapers were predicting the explosion of the bank, but the bank made significant changes.
By May 1840 the bank had relocated to Church and Williams Streets and in that month the stockholders elected its new Board of Directors – a few of whom carried over from the old Board. Although Reuben Foster remained on the Board, the directors elected a new president, Jacob Leach, who had a strong performance record as a businessman. The former cashier, William H. Lacey, was replaced by Thaddeus Warsaw Patchin. (Note: Mr. Lacey took a position as a teller in the United States Branch Bank in Buffalo, but committed suicide the on 4 July 1840 by overdosing on laudanum.)
Jacob Leach was among the most successful early merchant in Lyons establishing a store in 1814 called Leach & Company. He did everything possible to save the bank including heavily investing his own money, but the die was cast, and he suffered significant losses when the bank finally broke in late 1842. The New York Tribune on 22 December 1842 reported:
We understand from good authority that the Directors of the Bank of Lyons have decided not to make any attempt to get the Bank on its legs again, but that a Receiver will be appointed and the Bank go into liquidation.
Ten years later in 1852 De Witt Parshall, a lawyer and highly successful real estate entrepreneur in Palmyra, ventured into the banking business and started a new and completely separate bank called the Palmyra Bank of Lyons. He was its first president and the cashier was M. C. Tucker. On 31 March 1857 he changed the name to The Lyons Bank, and in 1860 moved to Canal and Williams Streets. In 1865 after the adoption of the National Banking Act he converted the bank to “The Lyons National Bank.”
This note was printed on sheet “A”
by Rawdon, Wright & Hatch
New York.
The note’s central vignettes are an Ayrshire bull on the left and an Ayrshire cow on the right. The vignette on the right is a gathering of a half dozen women with old wooden buckets. At the center bottom of the note is a commonly used head of a dog with FIDELITY below it. The note
has a hand written serial number
4655
and dated
Apr. 1, 1840.
It was signed by
Thad. W. Patchin
, Cashier and
R. H. Foster
, President. The payee was written as
N. B. Caswell.
This note was cancelled by tearing the left end off. It has been professionally patched using archival paper and conservation techniques. It is a descent circulated note with sharp vignettes and clear signatures. It has a normal amount of aging with a smattering of pinholes.