The First Bank and Trust Company — 1st Source Bank, and the 1863 question

1931 – present

The question, and the verdict: 1st Source Bank, the largest locally controlled bank in northern Indiana, states that its history "dates back to 1863 when we were chartered as the First National Bank of South Bend." The claim was tested against the charter record for this section, and the record supports it in part and corrects it in part. The descent is real, and documented at every link: the First National Bank of South Bend was organized on 5 September 1863, chartered on 13 November 1863 as OCC Charter No. 126, and opened on 30 November 1863; its business was absorbed in 1931–1932 by the Indiana Trust Company, which renamed itself the First Bank and Trust Company; and that company, renamed 1st Source Bank in 1981, is the bank that operates today. But the charter is not continuous: Charter No. 126 ended in voluntary liquidation on 12 January 1932, and the bank that stands behind today's institution is a state charter. The FDIC's institution record for the present bank — certificate No. 9087 — dates its establishment to 1 January 1922, the Indiana Trust Company end of the 1931 combination, and its federal deposit insurance to 1 January 1934. The 1863 root is verified as descent, not as a surviving charter, and the bank's own telling — in its 2013 annual report it says Morris was asked "to merge the bank and The Union Trust Company" — compresses a transaction the court record shows ran through the Indiana Trust Company as the surviving vehicle, with the Union Trust's own assets in the State Bank Commissioner's hands.

The bank built on the rescue: Ernest M. Morris — who had founded the Associates Investment Company in 1917 and built it into a pioneer of automobile finance — took the presidency of the combined bank, and with Vincent Bendix put the new capital in, on the bank's account $500,000 each. The bank opened its first branch in 1935 and its second in 1946; in 1940 it moved its offices into the old Farmers Security Bank building at 133 South Main, which carried its name as the First Bank Building until 1982; by the end of the 1950s it was the seventh-largest bank in Indiana. The name change to 1st Source Bank was approved on 18 May 1981, took effect 1 September 1981, and was unveiled publicly on 12 September 1981; in May 1982 the bank opened its headquarters at the 1st Source Center, 100 North Michigan Street, where it remains. The Morris family's leadership continues into the record's present: Morris's daughter Ernestine Raclin served as the corporation's chairman, and her son-in-law Christopher J. Murphy III has served as president, chairman and chief executive — both are profiled in the People section.

The bank today: 1st Source Bank is a state-chartered, Federal Reserve member bank headquartered at 100 North Michigan Street, South Bend. The FDIC's data for mid-2026 put its assets at about $9.26 billion, with some eighty-one offices; the bank's own account puts assets at $9.3 billion, more than 1,200 employees, and banking centers in nineteen counties. It remains what the 1931 rescue made it: the largest bank actually headquartered in South Bend, and the direct institutional descendant — by business, by name and by an unbroken chain of absorptions — of the bank that opened in the St. Joseph block on 30 November 1863.

Sources:

1. 1st Source Corporation, investor-relations corporate overview — the bank's statement of its 1863 charter descent, printed as the claim tested here.
2. Thomas A. Pollock, Tabular Guide to United States National Banks, 1863–1935, monograph for Charter No. 126 — the 1863 charter dates and the Comptroller's conclusion of 12 January 1932.
3. FDIC institution record for 1st Source Bank, certificate No. 9087 — establishment 1 January 1922, insurance from 1 January 1934, and the bank's reported size and offices in 2026.
4. 1st Source Corporation, 2013 annual report, "A Little History" — the bank's own account of the Morris presidency, the $500,000 investments, the merger narrative and the 1st Source Center.
5. South Bend State Bank v. Department of Financial Institutions, 213 Ind. 396 (1937) — the Indiana Trust Company's role as the surviving vehicle of June 1931 and its change of title to First Bank and Trust Company.
6. Federal Reserve, H.2 actions, 1981 — the change of title to 1st Source Bank, approved 18 May 1981, effective 1 September 1981; the bank's account of the unveiling of 12 September 1981 and the 1st Source Center's opening in May 1982.
7. National Register of Historic Places nomination, Farmers Security Bank Building — the First Bank and Trust Company's occupancy of 133 South Main, 1940–1982.