The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Banker of Fort Wayne · Comptroller of the Currency · Secretary of the Treasury
On the record
Hugh McCulloch was born 7 December 1808 at Kennebunk, Maine, attended Bowdoin College from 1825 to 1827, and, admitted to the bar in 1833, moved west to Fort Wayne. He was a probate judge in 1834, and from October 1835 to 1856 he was cashier and manager of the Fort Wayne branch of the State Bank of Indiana — the post the business record of this page notes in its bank entries — and from 1856–57 to 1863 president of the Bank of the State of Indiana. In Fort Wayne he also co-founded the Allen & Hamilton Company (1853) and helped lease the Wabash and Erie Canal. National office followed: first Comptroller of the Currency (1863–65) under Salmon P. Chase, though he had opposed the National Banking Act he was hired to administer; then, on 9 March 1865, Lincoln appointed him Secretary of the Treasury. He served to 3 March 1869, funding and reducing the Civil War debt; the Secret Service was established under him, on 5 July 1865. After years as a London partner in Jay Cooke, McCulloch & Co., he returned to the Treasury under President Arthur (31 October 1884 – 7 March 1885) — the only secretary to serve under four presidents, and the last surviving member of Lincoln's cabinet. His autobiography, Men and Measures of Half a Century, appeared in 1888. He died 24 May 1895 in Prince George's County, Maryland. His Fort Wayne house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Find them on this page
- § 06 — people of the record
- § 05 — business
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), "Hugh McCulloch"; Lilly Library, Indiana University, McCulloch manuscripts biographical note; Miller Center, University of Virginia.