The founding bankers — Stanfield, Seixas, Brownfield, Blanchard, and the rest

1838 – 1941

The branch era: South Bend's first bank was secured, not founded in the modern sense: Dr. John A. Henricks, Thomas D. Baird and George Crawford worked to land a branch of the State Bank of Indiana, and when the branch's stock was sold in the summer of 1838 the subscription books opened under commissioners Alexis Coquillard, Lathrop M. Taylor and John Grant — the town's founders selling its first bank stock. The branch opened on 24 November 1838, with Horatio Chapin as its manager. The thread from that room runs through one teller: John T. Lindsey was the state-bank branch's teller from 1856, and in 1863 he became the first cashier of the First National Bank.

The national banks' founders: The First National Bank of South Bend was organized on 5 September 1863 by Charles N. Culver, Thomas S. Stanfield, John A. Henricks, Ethan S. Reynolds, John Reynolds and Ransom Hubbard, with capital of $100,000; it was chartered on 13 November 1863 — Charter No. 126 — and opened on 30 November 1863, with Judge Thomas S. Stanfield as its first president and Lindsey as its first cashier. The St. Joseph County Savings Bank, incorporated 25 November 1869, was chiefly the work of Theodore J. Seixas, who ran it as secretary and cashier until 1878; Louis Humphreys, the physician who would be the city's first health officer and later its mayor, was its first president, and the huller maker John C. Birdsell stood among its incorporators.

Humphreys was succeeded by George W. Matthews and, from 1895, Jacob Woolverton; deposits grew from $7,267.98 in the first year to more than $3.25 million by 1907. The South Bend National Bank (Charter No. 1739, 1870) was organized by a roll that overlaps the First National's at nearly every name — the same small circle running the city's second national bank beside its first — with John Brownfield, who had been president of the Bank of the State of Indiana's branch, as its first president; William Miller succeeded him in 1888 and held the office until his death on 21 February 1901, and Marvin Campbell followed. Joseph B. Arnold Jr. organized the People's Savings Bank in 1875; it did business for ten years, closed voluntarily, and paid its depositors in full.

The Merchants' National Bank (Charter No. 6334, 1902), the last national charter of the old series, was a DeRhodes family enterprise: the brothers DeRhodes organized it, K. C. DeRhodes served as its cashier, and the family built the bank's building at Michigan and Wayne. The Citizens' National's presidential line runs through the charter record — A. Listenberger (1893), George W. Lewis (1894–1902), C. Fassnacht (1903–1918), Clement Studebaker Jr. (1919–1922), G. H. McMichael (1923–1932) — the wagon family's second generation carried in a bank's succession, as the Banks section notes.

The credit unions' founders: The city's first credit union was founded in the year its banks were falling. Harold H. Blanchard, a mathematics teacher at South Bend Central High School, formed a committee in February 1931 to organize a credit union for the city's teachers; the charter came in July, and the South Bend Teachers Federation Credit Union opened for business on 13 October 1931. Blanchard served as its secretary-treasurer for a salary of one dollar a year and kept the funds — ten dollars in shares — in a tin cash box at his own home. Six of the eight teachers who signed its charter were women, and its first member was Alice Craft. The institution, renamed Teachers Credit Union and now Everwise, grew from that cash box into the largest credit union in Indiana. A decade later Lou Buckley and John Sheehan founded the Notre Dame Federal Credit Union, in May 1941, in Room 329 of the Main Building; thirty members joined on its first day, and its first loan was $100, to a secretary in the Alumni Office.

Sources:

1. Banks — the State Bank branch (the 1838 securing and subscription, Chapin as manager, Lindsey's thread); the First National Bank (the six organizers, Stanfield first president, Lindsey first cashier, Charter No. 126); the St. Joseph County Savings Bank (Seixas's chief work and tenure, Humphreys first president, Birdsell an incorporator, the succession and the deposit series); the South Bend National Bank (the organizers, Brownfield first president, Miller 1888–1901, Campbell); the People's Savings Bank (Arnold, 1875); the Merchants' National Bank (the DeRhodes brothers, K. C. DeRhodes cashier); the Citizens' National Bank (the presidential line); Teachers Credit Union (Blanchard, the 1931 charter, the dollar-a-year secretary-treasurer, the tin cash box, the six women signers and Alice Craft); Notre Dame Federal Credit Union (Buckley and Sheehan, May 1941, Room 329).