Radio Script #901

Little Talks on Common Things
October 3, 1971

Recently presented to the Waterville Historical Society are the original, official records of two Waterville banks. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Roy of Violette Avenue have presented to the Society old record books that contain the minutes of stockholders’ and directors’ meetings of the Waterville Bank from 1850 to 1857, and of the later People’s National Bank from 1865 to 1933.

The bank covered in the records that began in 1850 was not this community’s first bank. In 1814 there was opened a banking institution called the Waterville Bank, with its modest, little office in a building in Ticonic Row near where the Waterville Hardware Co. now stands. In 1831 came another bank called the Ticonic. Then in 1850 when the original 1814 bank had closed its doors, there was opened another bank, which was given the same name as the first, and was called the Waterville Bank.

Let us now see what the old record book tells us about that bank that served Waterville people from the middle of the 19th century until after the Civil War.

Chartered by the Maine Legislature on June 20, 1850, its incorporators were Zebulon Sawyer, James Stackpole, Jr., Thomas Kimball, Jacob Crocker, Samuel Doolittle, Harrison Smith, John Philbrick, Henry Nourse, William Moor, C. I. Wingate, Daniel Brown, D. L. Milliken, Joseph Percival, Nahum Totman, and Samuel Taylor. Although everyone of those men was a prominent citizen at the time, the best remembered of them are James Stackpole, Jr., then Treasurer of Waterville College, General Harrison Smith, John Philbrick, Joseph Percival, and the Moors, the noted family of shipbuilders and merchants. Still remembered in Fairfield is the mill owner, Nahum Totman.

The incorporators held their first meeting on November 4, 1850, at which it was votedtb allow all persons interested to participate in the meeting, though they may not have been among the original petitioners. A committee was appointed to solicit subscriptions to the bank’s stock at $100 a share. The bank was formally organized on Dec. 9, 1850, and nine men were elected directors, Samuel Shaw, Increase Johnson, James Stackpole, Stephen Stark, John Philbrick, William Moor, Ebenezer Frye, Thomas Kimball, and, Daniel Brown. Banking hours were fixed at 9 a.m. to noon, and 1 to 3 p.m., six days a week, Monday through Saturday, except (and now note the few exceptions) except Sundays, public fast days, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. As I have frequently noted on this program, Christmas was not a holiday until some time later than 1850. That Waterville Bank was open for business on Christmas Day of that year. The Bank’s capitalization, at first set at $ 50,000 was at once increased to $ 75, 000.

When the bank closed in 1867, there were only five directors: D. L. Milliken, James Stackpole, Thomas Kimball, Francis Low, and E. F. Webb. The last meeting of stockholders was held on Oct. 7, 1867. The minutes of stockholders meetings during those 17 years are brief and cryptic. They tell us little except changes on the board of directors. The records of the directors’ meetings do, however, add some interesting information.

At their first meeting in December 1850, the directors voted to accept the offer from Esty and Kimball of rent of a room over their store in Ticonic Row at $12.50 a year for five years. During 1850 and 185~ loans were authorized to some well remembered persons. Reuben B. A~ams got $2,000, John Lang $1,000, Jacob Butterfield $500, and William Redington, $300.

On Feb. 20, 1851, the directors recorded the following action: “Voted to acknowledge to William Adams & Co. the receipt of the bank safe manufactured by them, with the satisfaction of the directors at the skillful, manner in which it has been constructed.”

Did the stockholders regard the bank as successful? At that time an investor looked for a somewhat better return than 5% on his money. But probably during its early years the stockholders of the Waterville Bank were glad to get a five dollar dividend every year, paid in December. Then late in the 1850’s business took a slump. In 1857 and 1858 the dividend was down to $4, and from 1859 through 1863 it was only $3 a share, or 3% on the original investment. As the Civil War progressed and loans became more in demand and their sources more scarce, interest rates advanced until some government bonds were paying 10%. Consequently by 1865 the banks’ dividend was $8 a share, and there it remained until the closing in 1867.

Like every other banking institution., the Waterville Bank was more than once faced with a bad loan. Here is how the directors voted on one such loan in 1863: “Voted to approve a proposal made by the President of this bank to Charles A. Russ, namely, that the bank will relinquish all further claim against him as endorser on the Russell & Houghton note, being the same on which suit has been commenced by this bank against Russ provided that said Russ shall, on or before Oct. 25, 1863, pay to the bank the sum of $ 500.”

So much for that second bank to carry the name of the Waterville Bank. Now let us turn to the much longer lived Peoples Bank.

The first item in that record book is copy of a certificate signed by the Controller of the Currency, fixing the amount of paper money to be issued in the name of the Peoples National Bank of Waterville at $500,000. That certificate is dated March 7, 1865.

To what did the incorporators of that bank agree? We find the answer in their Articles of Association, which read as follows:

1. The name shall be the Peoples National Bank of Waterville.

2. The place where the banking house shall be located and its operations of discount and deposit carried on, shall be at Waterville in Kennebec County, Maine.

3. The board of directors shall consist of seven stockholders.

4. The first meeting of stockholders for election of directors shall be held at the office of said bank on Feb. 6, 1865. Thereafter the annual meeting shall be on the second Tuesday of January.

5. The capital stock shall be $100,000 in shares of $100 each.

6. The Board of Directors, of whom five shall constitute a quorum, shall elect one of their number President, another Cashier, and shall elect such other officers and clerks as may be required.

7. This association shall continue for 20 years from the date of its certification, unless sooner dissolved by vote of stockholders owning at least 2/3 of the shares.

In January, 1865, the original stockholders were twenty, holding all together 910 shares of stock so that before the bank opened for business only 90 of its 1000 shares remained unsolicited. The largest stockholder, John Webber, with 200 shares, was elected President, and Homer Percival was named the first cashier, bonded at $30,000. He was authorized to purchase U. S. gold-bearing bonds with the money paid in by subscribers to the stock.

After the bank had been in operation for a year and a half, the records of the July meeting in 1866 reveal that the capital had been increased to $150,000, that the banks’ paper money in circulation (this currency then known as bank notes) amounted to $135,000 that, after dividends were paid, there were undivided profits of $8,358 and that total deposits were then $16,4813. The bank held loans of $123,131 and possessed U. S. bonds totaling $156,200. Its cash on hand was $133 less than its total deposits, or $ 1,355.

As the years passed there were inevitable changes in the board of directors. F. P. Harland became a director in 1884. Then in 1886 came Isaac Libby, father of Waterville’s late mayor Herbert C. Libby. Frank Philbrick of the Waterville Iron Works joined the group in 1900, Dr. F. L. Bessey in 1903, Father Charland of St. Francis Church in 1907, Martin Bartlett in 1912.

The Knauff family began its long connection with the bank in 1894 when Christian Knauff came on the staff and was soon made a director. After World War I other prominent names appeared on the directorate: S. A. Green, George Averill, C. B. Kelleher, and Charles Vigue.

In 1923 the bank decided to expand the number of directors to 35, though no more than 25 actually served at anyone time. In fact by a vote in 1930 the number was limited to 22. When the directorate was at its maximum of 25 in 1924 – 47 years ago – it contained some names that many of us remember very well. Among them were Fred Arnold, Nat Barrows, William Hager, Frank Rollins, Everett Wardwell, Sidney Green, and Eugene Thayer. In that same year 1924, the officers of the bank were Charles Vigue, President; Frank Bessey, Vice-President; William Johnson, Cashier; and Galen Sweet, Assistant Cashier. Galen Sweet, though now retired, is still very much with us, devoting most of his time to managership of the Baptist Conference Center on China Lake. I also have reason to remember Bill Johnson, because as a young man he was cashier of the Bridgton National Bank in my native town and from him I got the loan that saw me through my senior year at Colby.

In 1931, when Waterville became concerned lest it lose Colby College to Augusta because of William Gannett’s offer of his huge Ganneston Park as a new site for the college, a citizens committee got busy to provide a Waterville site. So, in the records of the Peoples Bank, we read the following item: “January 13, 1931. Voted to authorize the directors to subscribe $ 5,000 to the fund for a new site for Colby College in Waterville.”

In Sept. 1931, the Peoples Bank decided to merge with the Ticonic as the People-Ticonic Bank. The old Ticonic Bank was in serious difficulty, and the merger was the best way out. Then in the spring of 1933 every bank in’ the nation was in trouble. Between April 1 and May 13, 1933 there were seven adjourned meetings of the bank that performed no business. The last record in the book, made on that date, adjourned to May 20, but that meeting was not held. When the bank reopened it was the First National Bank of Waterville, and is now a branch of the Depositors Trust Co.

Year: 1971