Early Days In Jacksonville Banking

Early Days In Jacksonville Banking

John W. Cowart

The two thieves, who robbed the forerunner of Barnett Bank Of Jacksonville, made off with one packet of cash containing $5,000, two packets with $1,000 in each, and another packet with $500.

Considering that the bank had been founded with only $43,000 capital, this $7,500 loss was a major setback.

With pistol in hand, bank president William B. Barnett himself hunted the bank robbers for ten days and apprehended a suspect, holding him at gunpoint till police arrived for an arrest.

Such incidents characterize the wild, early days of banking in North Florida.

Indian trading posts, such as Panton, Leslie & Co., served as the areas banks during the 1700s. These trading posts gained land from the Indians in exchange for English goods, then traded the land to European settlers.

Since little money circulated, people used tickets, notes, even business and calling cards to pay debts and transact business.

Florida became a U.S. Territory in 1821, and for the next ten years East Florida operated without a bank.

The Bank Of St. Augustine was chartered with $300,000 authorized capital in 1831. This bank maintained a branch in Jacksonville.

Northern interests owned the bank yet its powers were wide. Too wide, many Floridians thought. The institution “had every power except that of killing Indians” complained one contemporary newspaper.

One night, local bank customers tore down the red-and-white-striped pole from the front of a barber shop and set it up at the bank’s front door. “They’ll shave you so close, that you’ll not need being shaved again,” the irate citizens protested.

Such incidents gleaned from several publications such as Dr. J.E. Dovell’s History Of Banking In Florida, papers of the Florida Historical Society, and old newspaper accounts show controversy as an integral part of the area’s banking development.

Anti-bank and anti-statehood feelings gripped northeast Florida. In the 1837 elections East Floridians voted against statehood by a 614 to 255 margin. The West Florida vote to seek statehood carried the day.

Delegates at the state’s 1838 constitutional convention divided into “bank men” (people with money) and “anti-bank men” (people without). One article of the constitution read: “No president, director, cashier, nor officer of any banking company in this state shall be eligible to the office of Governor, Senator, or Representative of the General Assembly”.

The Indian Wars of the 1840s caused Florida to borrow money form banks in Charleston, S.C., and Savannah to finance a $214,000 war effort. Florida was deeply in debt when it became a state in 1845.

The invention of the circular saw in 1850 proved a boon to Jacksonville’s economy. By 1853, the city boasted of 14 saw mills requiring 300 ships to haul away their product each year.

For a time banks flourished – sort of.

Arthur M. Reed opened a branch of the Bank Of Charleston in a corner of his insurance office, which stood where the Florida Theatre now stands. In 1858 it became the Bank of the St. Johns and issued legal tender such as a $5 note bearing the picture of a railroad steam locomotive or a $10 note picturing a wounded stag.