¹ Sylla, Richard, “Forgotten Men of Money: Private Bankers in Early U.S. History,” Journal of Economic History 36 (March 1976): 173CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Redlich, Fritz, Molding of American Banking: Men and Ideas (New York, 1947), 68Google Scholar.

³ See Adams, Donald R. Jr., Finance and Enterprise in Early America: A Study of Stephen Girard's Bank, 1812–1831 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1978CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Perkins, Edwin J., Financing Anglo-American Trade: The House of Brown, 1800–1880 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and Larson, Henrietta, Jay Cooke: Private Banker (Cambridge, Mass., 1936CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

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⁵ Larson, Jay Cooke, 27; Perkins, Financing Anglo-American Trade.

⁶ See A List of the Country Banks of England and Wales, Private and Proprietary; also the Names of all the Stockholders of Joint-Stock Banks, as Registered at the Stamp-Office In March 1838 (London, 1838Google Scholar).

⁷ Bankers' Magazine 4 (July 1854): 19–23Google Scholar.

⁸ Merchant's and Banker's Register for 1860 (New York, 1860), 28–41Google Scholar.

⁹ Sylla, Richard, The American Capital Market, 1846–1914: A Study of the Effects of Public Policy on Economic Development (New York, 1975), 264–65Google Scholar; Sylla, “Forgotten Men of Money,” 185.

¹⁰ From Jay Cooke's Memoirs, quoted in Tooker, Elva, Nathan Trotter: Philadelphia Merchant, 1787–1853 (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 191CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Dewey, Davis R., State Banking Before the Civil War (Washington, D.C., 1910), 144Google Scholar.

¹² For the importance of kinship networks see Lamoreaux, Naomi, Insider Lending (Cambridge, Mass., 1994CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

¹³ Hening, William Waller, Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia (Richmond, Va., 1823), vol. 9, 431–32Google Scholar; vol. 12, 166–67.

¹⁴ Virginia, Acts of Assembly (1815/16), Chapter XXII.

¹⁵ Virginia, Acts of Assembly (1816/17), Chapter IX.

¹⁶ Dewey, State Banking, 146.

¹⁷ Virginia, General Assembly, House Document #60 (1855/56) provides insights into the nature of the free banking debate in Virginia.

¹⁸ For a discussion of the problems created by bond-secured note issue see Rolnick, Arthur and Weber, Warren, “The Causes of Free Bank Failures: A Detailed Examination,” Journal of Monetary Economics 14 (Oct. 1984): 267–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Bodenhorn, Howard and Haupert, Michael, “Was There a Note Issue Conundrum in the Free Banking Era?” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 27 (Aug. 1995): 702–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bodenhorn, Howard and Haupert, Michael, “The Note Issue Paradox in the Free Banking Era,” Journal of Economic History 56 (Sept. 1996): 687–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Hammond, Bray, Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (Princeton, N.J., 1959), 194Google Scholar.

²¹ I thank an anonymous referee for bringing this possibility to my attention.

²² Hidy, Ralph W. and Hidy, Muriel E., “Anglo-American Merchant Bankers and the Railroads of the Old Northwest,” Business History Review 34 (Summer 1960): 151–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schweikart, Larry, “Private Bankers in the Antebellum South,” Southern Studies 25 (Summer 1986): 127Google Scholar.

²³ Redlich, Fritz, “The Role of Private Bankers in the Early Economy of the United States,” Business History Review 51 (Spring 1977): 92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ Tooker, Nathan Trotter, 76–77.

²⁵ Schweikart, “Private Bankers,” 130.

²⁶ Ibid., 127–28.

²⁷ Wyatt, Edward A., “Newmarket of the Virginia Turf,” William and Mary Quarterly, Second Ser. 17 (Oct. 1937): 488CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Branch & Company Records, Virginia Historical Society (hereafter abbreviated B&C Records), Description and Guide, typescript, 2–3; and Cabell, James Branch, Branchiana: Being a Partial Account of the Branch Family in Virginia (Richmond, Va., 1907), 50–52Google Scholar.

²⁹ Quoted in Lebsock, Suzanne, The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784–1860 (New York, 1984), 1Google Scholar.

³⁰ U.S. Bureau of the Census. Eighth Census (1860). Statistics of the United States, XVIII.

³¹ Wyatt, Edward A., “Rise of Industry in Ante-bellum Petersburg,” William and Mary Quarterly, Second Ser. 17 (Jan. 1937): 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² Olmstead, however, commented unfavorably on their speed compared to those produced in the North. Olmstead, Frederick Law, A Journey in the Seaboard. Slave States in the Years 1853–1854 with Remarks on their Economy (New York, 1904), 58Google Scholar.

³³ Wyatt, “Rise of Industry,” 33.

³⁴ U.S. Bureau of Census. Eighth Census (1860). Manufactures, 610–11.

³⁵ Business Directory for the Cities of Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk, and Portsmouth, Virginia for 1859–60 (New York, 1859Google Scholar).

³⁶ Mendell, Misses and Hosmer, , Notes of Travel and Life (New York, 1854), 165Google Scholar.

³⁷ The failure of the directories and other sources to list such men as Branch as private bankers supports both Sylla's and Schweikart's contention that the size of the industry has been seriously underestimated and unfairly ignored by economic and business historians.

³⁸ B&C Records, Bill Book, 1852–1856.

³⁹ Virginia. General Assembly. Assembly Document #41 (1856).

⁴⁰ B&C Records, Ledger, 1846–1858; B&C Records, Bill Book, 1848–1851; Bill Book, 1852–1856.

⁴¹ Adams, “Bank of Stephen Girard,” 851. The third may be viewed as a subset of the second, but it is of sufficient importance that it will be treated as a separate activity.

⁴² These were the only two years for which deposits could be constructed because Branch had the accounts tallied as of 1 January and the balances recorded in the General Ledgers. Because several subsequent ledgers are missing and no records of subsequent tallies could be found, it would be nearly impossible to reconstruct accounts for later years.

⁴³ B&C Records, Ledger, 1846–1858.

⁴⁴ Sylla, “Forgotten Men,” 178–81. By way of comparison, on 1 January 1855 the Farmers Bank of Virginia held $105,259 in deposits; the Exchange Bank, $193,631; and the Bank of Virginia, $83,013. While Branch's lending operations were considerably smaller than those of his chartered rivals, his deposit holdings compare favorably. Again, this adds credence to the contention that studies of antebellum American monetary and financial systems that ignore private banking seriously underestimate the volume of both money and intermediation occurring in the early republic. Virginia. General Assembly. Assembly Document #41 (1856).

⁴⁵ One contemporary observer believed Branch & Sons did “the largest business of its kind in the city.” See Claiborne, John Herbert, Seventy-Five Years in Old Virginia (New York, 1904), 50Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Bagehot, Walter, Lombard Street (London, 1906), 282Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Directors minutes books of the Citizens Bank of Louisiana show that banking business often went unfinished because a quorum of directors could not be had. Of the 58 meetings of the board between 7 June and 6 December 1838, no new business could be conducted at 26 meetings for lack of a quorum (8 of 12 directors). The cashier was often asked to “invite” absent directors to subsequent meetings. Citizens Bank of Louisiana Minute Book and Records, 1833–1868. Records of Ante-Helium Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War. Series H, microfilm reel 14. Gras, N.S.B., Massachusetts National Bank of Boston, 1784–1934 (Cambridge, Mass., 1937), 89Google Scholar, reported that similar problems recurred at the Massachusetts Bank throughout the antebellum era.

⁴⁸ Hammond, Banks and Politics, 193.

⁴⁹ B&C Records, Reference Book, 1852–1856.

⁵⁰ Hammond, Bray, “Long and Short Term Credit in Early American Banking,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 49 (Nov. 1935), 79–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adams, “Bank of Stephen Girard,” 854.

⁵¹ Weiss, Thomas, “U.S. Labor Force Estimates and Economic Growth, 1800–1860,” in American Economic Growth and Standards of Living Before the Civil War, ed. Gallman, Robert E. and Wallis, John Joseph (Chicago, Ill., 1992), 27Google Scholar.

⁵² Margo, Robert A. and Villaflor, Georgia C., “The Growth of Wages in Antebellum America: New Evidence,” Journal of Economic History 47 (Dec. 1987): 893CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ If we assume a lower rate of return and income in excess of that of an average artisan, a $250 loan as a percent of gross revenue or gross sales becomes even smaller. Scattered pieces of evidence from the antebellum era also suggests that clerks and bookkeepers (an important class of borrowers at Branch's house) earned substantially more than skilled artisans. In 1854 the discount clerk at the Massachusetts Bank of Boston has an annual salary of $1,300. In 1848 bookkeepers at the Bank of the State of Missouri earned $1,000 per annum. It seems clear, then, that Branch was not lending to the poor, but he was offering credit to the young and those just beginning their climb up the commercial ladder. See Gras, Massachusetts First National, 535–36, and Cable, John Ray, The Bank of the State of Missouri (New York, 1923), 213Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ In determining occupations, names of discounters were matched to either the 1860 manuscript census for Dinwiddie, Prince Edward, and Henrico counties, a city directory for Petersburg or Richmond, or both. Branch's discounting was apparently quite local. For 1849, 70.5 percent of all discounts (some individuals discounted more than one note) were matched to either the manuscript census or a city directory. In 1850, the percentage was 71.8 percent; 1851, 64.0 percent; 1852, 69.3 percent; 1853, 66.6 percent; 1854, 73.1 percent; and 1855, 63.7 percent. The following analysis also assumes that occupations did not change between a given year and 1860.

⁵⁵ The class “merchant” includes such occupations as commission merchants, clothiers, confectioners, druggists, grocers, wholesale hardware dealers, merchant tailors, and so forth.

⁵⁶ Manufacturers included blacksmiths, carriage makers, coopers, cotton factories, founders, millers, tobacconists, wheelwrights, etc. Service occupations include such individuals as attorneys, railroad baggage masters, bank tellers and cashiers, bookkeepers, clerks, exchange brokers, hostlers, liverymen, physicians, and teachers.

⁵⁷ On several occasions Branch was called on to honor such notes. To one client he wrote: “We advised you in the 25th inst that your note payable at the Farmers Bank of this place for $1,750, and endorsed by ourselves would fall due this day. As you have forgotten to make any arrangements for its retirement…we have paid it…” Branch to W.R. Johnson, undated [ca. Nov. 1847], B&C Records, Letterbook, 1846–1849.

⁵⁸ Lamoreaux, Insider Lending, 54–55.

⁵⁹ Simpson, Biography of Stephen Girard, 114–15, quoted in Adams, Donald R. Jr., “Portfolio Management and Profitability in Early-Nineteenth-Century Banking,” Business History Review 52 (Spring 1978): 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁰ The years 1854 and 1855 were chosen because ages and occupations were matched to the 1860 manuscript census schedules. Because only 48.1 percent of discounters in Branch's bill books for 1854 and 45.2 percent for 1855 could be matched to the schedules, it seemed unprofitable to match for earlier years. These percentages are lower than those reported in note 54 above because this count matches borrowers; note 54 reported matches of discounts and some individuals discounted more than one note.

⁶¹ Records of the Black River Bank. Various ledgers. Jefferson County Historical Society (Watertown, N.Y.).

⁶² Only those occupations for which four or more individuals were matched are included in the averages.

⁶³ Lebsock, Free Women, 28–30, 33.

⁶⁴ Atack, Jeremy, “The Agricultural Ladder Revisited: A New Look at an Old Question with Some Data for 1860,” Agricultural History 63 (1989): 19Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ The presumption throughout has been that men were the only discounters at Branch's house. Most borrowers were, in fact, men. Branch discounted notes for only three women: Paulette Harolds (one note) in 1851, Eliza Ritchie (three) in 1855, and Jane C. Oliver (four) between 1850 and 1852. Jane Oliver is an interesting study in female entrepreneurship. Between 1854 and 1856 she purchased fifteen lots on which she had houses built. She financed most of this speculation with credit and by 1856, when the houses had not yet sold, her creditors forced her to sell the lots and houses, her plantation and seven of her slaves to meet their demands. To what purpose she put the discounts received at Branch's house must remain a matter of speculation as they were simply listed as “discount.” It may be reasonable, therefore, to assume that she had embarked on her speculations prior to the building fiasco. Lebsock, Free Women, 126.

⁶⁶ Lee Soltow, “Inequalities in the Standard of Living in the United States, 1798–1875,” in American Economic Growth and Standards of Living, ed. Gallman and Wallis, 128.

⁶⁷ Although he does not offer the same age categories, Soltow's research into wealth distribution in the antebellum South suggests that the 1850s did not differ markedly from the 1870s (with the exception, of course, of slaveholding). See Soltow, , “Economic Inequality in the United States in the Period from 1790 to 1860,” Journal of Economic History 31 (Dec. 1971): 822–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁸ Cameron, Rondo, Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization (New York, 1967), 12–13Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ See Bodenhorn, Howard, “Capital Mobility and Financial Integration in Antebellum America,” Journal of Economic History 52 (Sept. 1992): 585–610CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bodenhorn, Howard and Rockoff, Hugh, “Regional Interest Rates in Antebellum America,” in Strategic Factors in American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel, ed. Goldin, Claudia and Rockoff, Hugh (Chicago, Ill., 1992), 159–87Google Scholar for statements of the issues surrounding the importance of geographic capital mobility.

⁷⁰ To one client Branch wrote; “We have this day drawn on you…at Bank of Va…we have no blank notes of yours in our possession.” Branch to Palmore & Daniels, 21 May 1846. B&C Records, Letterbook, 1846–1849.

⁷¹ Woodman, Harold, King Cotton and His Retainers (Lexington, Ky., 1968), 41Google Scholar.

⁷² In 1845 Branch extended $145,240 in loans. Commercial banks had loans outstanding in excess of $576.1 million. The calculation assumes that commercial banks rolled their loans over three times per year (an average four month loan term) so that the total volume of commercial bank credit was $1,728.4 million and that the total volume of private bank credit was $174.3 million. Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Currency (Washington, D.C., 1876), XCIGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ The calculation was based on the same assumptions as those in note 72. The South included Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Currency (Washington, D.C., 1876), CIX–CXVGoogle Scholar.