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By 1838 – succeeded by the Hamilton National Bank
Founded: A "long established trading house" on Columbia Street by 1838, when Dawson counted its banking house among the town's institutions. Partners: Allen Hamilton, Cyrus Taber and Thomas Hamilton.
Founder: Allen Hamilton — Irish immigrant, trader, and the town's first banker; afterwards a mayor of Fort Wayne and the man for whom, by the usual account, Hamilton County connections and the Hamilton name run through Indiana banking.
What it did: Merchandising first, then banking: the trading house became a private banking house, the town's financial centre before any chartered bank existed locally. Stephen B. Bond, later president of the Fort Wayne National Bank, became its cashier on 25 September 1855.
Course and fate: The Hamilton banking interest continued as the Hamilton National Bank, which consolidated with the First National Bank in April 1917 (see the First National Bank entry).
Sources:
- Valley of the Upper Maumee River, Vol. II (1889) — Hamilton partnership; Bond's cashiership, 25 September 1855.
- John W. Dawson, Charcoal Sketches (1872) — the 1838 town, one banking house.
- B. J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Vol. I (1917), part 52 — the Hamilton National consolidation of 1917.