The national-bank generation

1865 – 1917

The charters: The state branch converted first: in 1865 the Fort Wayne branch of the Bank of the State of Indiana took a national charter, No. 865, as the Fort Wayne National Bank, with Stephen B. Bond — Allen Hamilton & Co.'s old cashier — as president; its profile is in the business record. The same year brought the Merchants National Bank, charter No. 1100, chartered 1 May 1865 at Berry and Calhoun under president Peter P. Bailey; Griswold's history records that it discontinued business in 1874. An Old National Bank organised in January 1885 took charter No. 3285, with Bond again at its head and Henry C. Paul its president by the directory of 1918 — the first Fort Wayne bank of that name, an ancestor in name only of the Evansville company that uses it today, as the business record's Old National entry states.

Hamilton National Bank: Has no separate profile in the business record, so it is carried here. The 1903 directory lists the Hamilton National Bank at the northwest corner of Calhoun and Main, "Organized 1879," capital $200,000 and surplus $275,000 — the larger surplus of the two — with Charles McCulloch, Hugh McCulloch's son, as president and John Mohr Jr. as cashier. It was Allen Hamilton's private house under a federal charter: the banking line of 1838 wearing the national system's clothes. In April 1917 it consolidated with the First National, and the combined bank took the name First and Hamilton National Bank.

White National Bank: Also carried here, having no business-record profile. The White National Bank was organised 25 April 1892 at the northwest corner of Wayne and Clinton, capital $200,000, surplus $90,000 in the 1903 directory, J. W. White president and H. A. Keplinger cashier. In August 1905 it consolidated into the First National Bank, the first of the gatherings that made the First National the system's centre of gravity before 1929.

The German-American entry: The generation closed with a community bank: the German American National Bank, chartered 1905 on Court Street — the 1918 directory dates its incorporation to August 1904, the year of organisation before the charter issued — founded by Samuel M. Foster and the Ohio banker Theodore Wentz for the German-American business community that formed, in the tower history's words, the backbone of its investors, depositors and customers. Its renaming and tower are told in the business record and in the consolidation entry below.

Sources:

1. Comptroller of the Currency charter records — Fort Wayne National Bank, charter No. 865 (1865); Merchants National Bank, charter No. 1100 (1865); Old National Bank of Fort Wayne, charter No. 3285.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., Fort Wayne City Directories, 1903 and 1918, "Banks and Bankers" — the Hamilton National, White National, Old National and Lincoln listings, with capitals, officers and organisation dates.
3. Bert J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Vol. I (1917) — the Merchants National discontinuation (1874) and the White (1905) and Hamilton (1917) consolidations.