Merchants National Bank, Newton, NJ (Charter 876)
Merchants National Bank, Newton, NJ (Chartered 1865 - Closed 1925)
Town History
Newton, officially the Town of Newton, is an incorporated municipality and the county seat of Sussex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated approximately 60 miles northwest of New York City. Newton's land area drains into the watersheds of the Paulins Kill and Pequest River—two rivers that are tributaries of the Delaware River. These watersheds are separated by slate ridges that are part of the Martinsburg Formation. These slate ridges were quarried for slate for roofs and other industrial purposes beginning with a quarry opened by Elijah Blackwell in 1859 that operated under a series of different owners and commercial entities until 1930. As of the 2020 United States census, the town's population was 8,374, its highest decennial population ever. The population in 1860 was 1,824 growing to 5,401 by 1930.
One of 15 municipalities in the state organized as a town, the municipal government operates under a council-manager structure provided by the Faulkner Act, or Optional Municipal Charter Law. Newton was incorporated by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 11, 1864, from portions of Newton Township, which was also partitioned to create Andover Township and Hampton Township, and was then dissolved. Additional land was acquired from Andover Township in 1869 and 1927, and from Fredon Township in 1920.
In 1762, Jonathan Hampton, of Elizabethtown, surveyed the location for a county courthouse and town green at the intersection of a military supply road he built during the French and Indian War and a major north–south artery called the King's Highway (present-day New Jersey Route 94). The construction of the courthouse was completed in 1765 and the village that developed around it became known as Sussex Court House. The county courthouse was the site of a raid by British partisan Lieutenant James Moody during the American Revolution.
In 1797, the village's post office was renamed Newtown and later, in 1825, the spelling was altered to Newton.
The Newton Town Plot Historic District is a 17-acre historic district encompassing the Town Plot section of Newton along Church, High, Main, Moran, and Spring Streets; and Park Place. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 12, 1992, for its significance in architecture, commerce, community planning, settlement, and politics from 1762 to 1941. The district includes the Sussex County Courthouse, which was added individually to the NRHP in 1979 and the Hill Memorial, added in 1985. The Sussex and Merchants National Bank was built in 1927 with Georgian Revival style and some Beaux Arts ornamentation.
Newton had two National Banks chartered during the Bank Note Era, and both of those banks issued National Bank Notes.
Bank History
- Organized March 8, 1865
- Chartered March 10, 1865
- Closed January 2, 1925
- Consolidated with 925 January 2, 1925 (Sussex NB/Sussex and Merchants NB, Newton, NJ)
On Wednesday evening June 9, 1881, Jacob L. Swayze died at his residence at Newton. He had been sick since last October. Mr. Swayze was 57 years of age, having been born at Hope, Warren County, New Jersey, on March 3, 1824. He was the son of Israel Swayze. He received a common school education and went into a store at Hope. In 1847 he moved to Stanhope where he was in business until 1855. He studied law in the office of Judge Ryerson. In 1858 he went to Newton and resumed the study of law in the office of Mercer Bradley, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and that year was admitted to the bar. Mr. Swayze was prominent in organizing the Merchants National Bank of Newton and was one of its largest stockholders. He was elected cashier in 1865, and after the death in 1878 of the first president, the Hon. Robert Hamilton, he succeeded him and was president of the bank at the time of his death. He was originally a Jacksonian Democrat, but his anti-slavery proclivities look him into the Republican party where he remained until 1872 when he joined the Greely movement. He supported Garfield in 1880 because of the latter's alleged protection views. He was a member of New Jersey's constitutional convention in 1873. Mr. Swayze was brought into much notoriety by his fight with the Newton ring. A part of this contest was his indictment last fall for criminal libel. In 1877 he bought the Deckertown Independent and the next year sold the same to its present proprietors, Messrs. Gibbs & Stanton. Mr. Swayze used the Independent as a powerful weapon against the Newton ring. In 1860 he started the Trenton State Gazette, which became one of the leading papers of New Jersey. Mr. Swayze was a man of great strength of character, of thorough honesty of purpose, of unimpeachable integrity, and was one of the most noble men of his times. His traits of character made him thoroughly hated by enemies, and deeply loved by his friends.[1]
The Hon. Samuel H. Hunt was elected to succeed Mr. Swayze as president and O.P. Armstrong was chosen vice president.[2]
In January 1892, the stockholders elected two new directors, M.I. Southard and J.H. Valentine, in place of Allen Everett and C.B. Van Sickle.[3]
On January 19, 1895, Dr. R.A. Sheppard died at his residence in Newton, aged 68.[4] Dr. Sheppard was one of the substantial business men of Newton. Upon the organization of the Merchants National Bank at Newton, he was one of the first subscribers to stock and for many years a director, and for several years he had been a stockholder in the Sussex National Bank and a director at the time of his death.
In January 1892, on the first day of the session of the New Jersey Legislature, Governor Griggs sent to that body the name of John L. Swayze as his choice for the office of Prosecutor of the Pleas for Sussex County. John Lowrence Swayze was a resident of Newton, where he was born, October 18, 1868. He was the youngest son of Jacob L. Swayze who was one of the founders and for many years cashier and president of the Merchants National Bank of Newton. His education was obtained at the Newton Collegiate Institute and at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. From the age of eighteen until he was 23, Mr. Swayze represented the Equitable Life Assurance Company of New York in Northern New Jersey. In January 1892, he was general manager in Chicago, for the Standard Cash Register Co., with exclusive control of the territory west of Pennsylvania, north and south. This business enterprise met with marked success, but in the summer of 1892, his health having failed, Mr. Swayze returned to Newton, where he entered the law office of Allen R. Shay, and subsequently that of Theodore Simonson, the Prosecutor for Sussex. He was admitted to the bar at the November term in 1894 and was made counselor at law in November 1897. During the legislative sessions of 1894 and 1895 Mr. Swayze was journal clerk of the House of Assembly. He was elected chairman of the Republican County Committee in September 1897, on the retirement of William M. Smith. He would enter upon his new duties April 1st, 1898.[5]
In January 1906, the comptroller of the currency in the weekly bulletin noted the election of John L. Swayze as vice president of the Merchants National Bank of Newton in place of Hon. M.I. Southard, deceased.[6] On June 1, 1906, John C. Howell, president of the Merchants National Bank of Newton, died at his home on Main Street, Newton, after an illness of several months. He was 64 years old and was born in Sussex Borough. He served in the civil war with the Seventh New Jersey Volunteers. Mr. Howell was chosen cashier of the Merchants National Bank in 1878 and president of the bank in 1898. He was a member the of Griggs Post, GAR, and the Washington Society of Morristown, and was the Treasurer of the Sussex County Sesquicentennial Committee.[7]
On Monday afternoon, June 3, 1918, directors elected George A. Smith president to succeed the late Dr. Ephraim Morrison. Mr. Smith had been the vice president and cashier of the bank. Raymond Snyder who for several years had been a director was elected vice president and Frank B. Boss was promoted from assistant cashier to the position of cashier.[8] Dr. Morrison had been a physician in Newton for 43 years, a graduate from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1875. He died at his home in Newton on Friday, May 10th.The New York Times, New York, NY, Sun., May 12, 1918.
The consolidation of the Sussex National Bank and the Merchants National Bank as the Sussex and Merchants National Bank of Newton became effective on Friday, January 2, 1925. The banking rooms of the later institution would be occupied until alterations started on the building, when the bank would move to the Sussex Bank's rooms across Spring Street. The old Merchants Bank building and the Freeman building adjoining and recently purchased by the bank, would be remodeled. The board of directors of the Merchants bank voted a special cash dividend of 40% payable to stockholders Thursday. The special dividend represented accumulated assets in excess of those required to effect the consolidation.[9]
Official Bank Title
1: The Merchants National Bank of Newton, NJ
Bank Note Types Issued
A total of $2,219,120 in National Bank Notes was issued by this bank between 1865 and 1925. This consisted of a total of 260,668 notes (260,668 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 - 3000 Original Series 4x5 1 - 2150 Original Series 3x10-20 1 - 2620 Series 1875 3x1-2 1 - 1060 Series 1875 4x5 1 - 3750 Series 1875 3x10-20 1 - 1452 1882 Brown Back 4x5 1 - 22651 1882 Brown Back 3x10-20 1 - 3518 1902 Red Seal 3x10-20 1 - 4000 1902 Date Back 3x10-20 1 - 9400 1902 Plain Back 3x10-20 9401 - 20966
Bank Presidents and Cashiers
Bank Presidents and Cashiers during the National Bank Note Era (1865 - 1925):
Presidents:
- Robert Hamilton, 1865-1877
- Jacob Lowrance Swayze, 1878-1880
- Samuel Hill Hunt, 1881-1897
- John C. Howell, 1898-1905
- John Lowrence Swayze, 1906-1912
- Edward Morrison, 1913-1917
- George A. Smith, 1918-1921
- Henry Thomas Kays, 1922-1924
Cashiers:
- Jacob Lowrance Swayze, 1865-1877
- John C. Howell, 1878-1897
- George A. Smith, 1898-1917
- Frank B. Boss, 1918-1924
Other Known Bank Note Signers
- No other known bank note signers for this bank
Bank Note History Links
Sources
- Newton, NJ, 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
- ↑ The Evening Gazette, Port Jervis, NY, Thu., June 9, 1881.
- ↑ The Evening Gazette, Port Jervis, NY, Sat., June 25, 1881.
- ↑ Middletown Times-Press, Middletown, NY, Mon., Jan. 11, 1892.
- ↑ The Sun, New York, NY, Mon., Jan. 21, 1895.
- ↑ The Morris County Chronicle, Morristown, NJ, Fri., Jan. 14, 1898.
- ↑ Perth Amboy Evening News, Perth Amboy, NJ, Tue., Jan. 9, 1906.
- ↑ The New York Times, New York, NY, Sat., June 2, 1906.
- ↑ Middletown Times-Press, Middletown, NY, Fri., June 7, 1918.
- ↑ The Courier-News, Bridgewater, NJ, Sat., Jan. 3, 1925.