Central National Bank, Boonville, MO (Charter 1584)
Central National Bank, Boonville, MO (Chartered 1865 - Liquidated 1916)
Town History
Boonville is a city and the county seat of Cooper County, Missouri. It is part of the Columbia, Missouri metropolitan area.
The community derives its name from Nathan and Daniel Morgan Boone, who were the sons of Daniel Boone and established their salt business near the community in the early 1800s, delivering their product from salt licks to St. Louis. The area has been called "Boone's Lick" and the route from the lick to St. Charles/St. Louis, Missouri is called the Boone's Lick Trail. The eastern terminus near Boonville at Franklin, Missouri is considered the original start of the Santa Fe Trail. Boonville was named the county seat in 1818. The city was the site of a skirmish early in the Civil War, on July 17, 1861. Union forces defeated the Missouri State Guard in the first Battle of Boonville. In 1860, the population was 2,596, growing to 4,377 by 1900. The population was 7,964 at the 2020 census.
Boonville had two National Banks chartered during the Bank Note Era, and both of those banks issued National Bank Notes.
Bank History
- Organized September 9, 1865
- Chartered October 11, 1865
- In place of Exchange Bank & Savings Association (Note on Org Report)
- Liquidated December 19, 1916
- Succeeded by 10915 (Boonville National Bank, Boonville, MO)
In 1864, Joseph L. Stephens opened a bank in Booneville and the following year organized the Central National Bank. In 1872 he was a candidate for Governor, but his party was not strong enough to elect him. However, his son Lawrence would become governor of Missouri in 1896.
Officers of the bank ca1875 were Joseph L. Stephens, president; James M. Nelson, vice president; Robert Wadeson, cashier; W. Speed Stephens, assistant cashier; Harvey Bunce, chairman, discount board; and Will L. Stephens, general bookkeeper.
On October 27, 1916, the Central National Bank, one of the first national banks west of the Mississippi and for half a century the leading banking institution of Central Missouri, went out of business through liquidation. A new bank was organized in its stead known ad the Boonville National Bank and it began business on the 28th. In December, the historic old bank building was sold by W. Speed Stephens and Lon V. Stevens to the Boonville National Bank for $11,000. The Boonville National planned to remodel the bank and modernize the building as soon as weather would permit.
March 29, 1917, an indictment charging Alex H. Stephens, a brother of former Gov. Lon V. Stephens, with having embezzled $43,000 of the funds of the Central National Bank of Boonville. Missouri, of which he was assistant cashier, was returned secretly by the Federal Grand Jury in St. Louis. Stephens entered the services of the Central National Bank in 1887 as assistant bookkeeper. He was made a director and teller in 1890 and became assistant cashier in 1896. Stephens was in the State Hospital for the Insane at Nevada. Former Gov. Stephens and another brother, W. Speed Stephens, who owned nearly all the stock of the bank, closed it last October, when it was learned from a national bank examiner that funds of the institution had been mis-used. They organized another bank, the Boonville National Bank, to take over the business of the Central National, and arranged to pay the losses, which were said to have been greater than the amount mentioned in the indictment and so large that the bank's capital of $200,000 was impaired. At the time of the liquidation of the bank, former Gov. Stephens was vice president and acting president and W. Speed Stephens was cashier, although Alex Stephens virtually had full charge of the institution, former Gov. Stephens residing in St. Louis and W. Speed Stephens being in ill health. Members of the Stephens family last October began an Investigation to learn what had become of the money used by Alex Stephens, but they reportedly were unable to. They became convinced that the money had been lost through reckless management of a garage owned by Alex Stephens in Boonville. Following the closing of the bank it was announced that Alex Stephens was broken in health and he was placed in a sanitarium, from which he later was removed to the Asylum for the Insane at St. Joseph, and later to the Nevada Hospital. Although the indictment was not made public, it was said to contain 15 counts charging embezzlement and fabrication of the bank records. Among the witnesses who were before the Grand Jury were B.M. Lester, cashier of the new bank, and Russell Moore, a bookkeeper in the old bank. Former Gov. Stephens, who was in Hot Springs, Arkansas, told a reporter over the long-distance telephone that he had known of his brother's irregularities since last August. "My brother, Alex, has been drinking heavily for ten or twelve years," Stephens said, "and when we learned of irregularities at the bank his condition had become such that he was a mental wreck.” “We have not found any indication that he speculated. In fact, we can’t find what he did with the money, and we have reached the conclusion that it was frittered away through mismanagement of his automobile business.” As a patient in the State Hospital, no further action was taken with the indictment. A.H. Stephens shared the same name as Alexander Hamilton Stephens (February 11, 1812 – March 4, 1883), an American politician who served as the vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the 50th governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883.
In April 1919, Stephens was paroled from the hospital at Nevada, Missouri. Embezzlement charges were dropped and Stephens was permitted to plead guilty to certifying a check when there were not funds to meet it in the bank. Stephens was taken to the Henry County jail from Jefferson City. His attorneys, Congressman-elect Sam C. Major of Fayette and Henry Conrad of Kansas City appeared before Judge Woodrough of Omaha and pleaded for leniency for Stephens because of his physical condition. Assistant district Attorney Samuel Hargiss of Kansas City recommended a sentence of 12 months in jail. Judge Woodrough assessed the punishment at 11 months and then pronounced sentence. Relatives of Stephens started a movement for his parole shortly after he began to serve his sentence. On September 5, 1919, Stephens was released from the Henry County Jail at Clinton, Missouri. He was pardoned by President Wilson on the 4th.
Official Bank Title(s)
1: The Central National Bank of Boonville, MO
Bank Note Types Issued
A total of $1,220,090 in National Bank Notes was issued by this bank between 1865 and 1916. This consisted of a total of 176,916 notes (176,916 large size and No small size notes).
This bank issued the following Types and Denominations of bank notes:
Series/Type Sheet/Denoms Serial#s Sheet Comments Original Series 3x1-2 1 - 6400 Original Series 4x5 1 - 5900 Original Series 4x10 1 - 3750 Series 1875 4x5 1 - 2500 Series 1875 4x10 1 - 6250 1882 Brown Back 4x5 1 - 5987 1882 Brown Back 3x10-20 1 - 3586 Plate approved Sept. 22, 1885; $10s with abnormal border variety 1902 Red Seal 4x5 1 - 3500 1902 Red Seal 3x10-20 1 - 2600 1902 Date Back 4x5 1 - 2225 1902 Date Back 3x10-20 1 - 1531
Bank Presidents and Cashiers
Bank Presidents and Cashiers during the National Bank Note Era (1865 - 1916):
Presidents:
- Joseph Lafayette Stephens , 1865-1881
- James Martin Nelson, 1882-1891
- Harvey Bunce, 1892-1892
- Charles E. Leonard, 1893-1915
Cashiers:
Other Known Bank Note Signers
- Bertrand M. Lester (Asst Cashier 1915)
- Lawrence Vest (Lon) Stephens (VP 1894...1916; Asst Cashier 1893)
- Alexander Hamilton Stephens (Asst Cashier 1899...1916)
Bank Note History Links
Sources
- Boonville, MO, on Wikipedia
- Don C. Kelly, National Bank Notes, A Guide with Prices. 6th Edition (Oxford, OH: The Paper Money Institute, 2008).
- Dean Oakes and John Hickman, Standard Catalog of National Bank Notes. 2nd Edition (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1990).
- Banks & Bankers Historical Database (1782-1935), https://spmc.org/bank-note-history-project
- Barns, C.R. (Chancy Rufus), Ed., The Commonwealth of Missouri, a Centennial Record, St. Louis, Bryan, Brand & Co., 1877.
- The St. Louis Star and Times, St. Louis, MO, Sat., Oct. 28, 1916.
- The Tipton Times, Tipton, MO, Fri., Dec. 22, 1916.
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, MO, Thu., Mar. 29, 1917.
- The Tipton Times, Tipton, MO, Fri., July 13, 1917.
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, MO, Fri., Sep. 5, 1919.