The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Lawyer turned banker; president of the First and Hamilton National Bank
On the record
Charles Howard Worden was a son of Judge James L. Worden and Anna (Grable) Worden. He read law in the office of Judge Robert S. Taylor and was admitted to the bar in 1882. He practiced as Worden & Morris with John Morris from 1887 to 1893 — the two men’s fathers had earlier practiced under the same firm name — and as Zollars & Worden with Judge Allen Zollars from 1894 to 1902. In 1902 he left the law to become vice president of the First National Bank, with the responsibilities of its chief executive, and on 9 January 1917 he was elected its president. When the Hamilton National Bank was merged with the First National on 7 April 1917, he was elected president of the combined First and Hamilton National Bank, which opened for business under its new name on 9 April 1917. He was also vice president of the Hartford Paper Company and of the Wayne Paper Goods Company and a director of the Fort Wayne Corrugated Paper Company, and he had served as an elder of the First Presbyterian Church from 1885. He married Elizabeth Marshall Hoffman on 10 January 1884.
Sources: Griswold, Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, vol. II (1917), Worden sketch, read first-hand. Corroborated by the 1918 Polk Fort Wayne city directory, which lists the First & Hamilton National Bank at the southeast corner of Calhoun and Berry streets with “C H Worden Pres.”