First National Bank, Punxsutawney, PA (Charter 3030)
First National Bank, Punxsutawney, PA (Chartered 1883 - Liquidated 1909)
Town History
Punxsutawney is a borough in southern Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. Punxsutawney is known for its annual Groundhog Day celebration held each February 2, during which thousands of attendees and international media outlets visit the town for an annual weather prediction by the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil. The actual prediction location, Gobbler's Knob, is in adjacent Young Township.
The borough, located 84 miles northeast of Pittsburgh and 50 miles northwest of Altoona, was incorporated in 1850. The population in 1880 was 674 ad peaked in 1920 at 10,311. With a population of 5,769 in 2020, Punxsutawney is the largest incorporated municipality in Jefferson County.
Shawnee wigwam villages once occupied this site on the Mahoning Creek. The first settlement that included non-indigenous people was established in 1772, when Reverend John Ettwein, a Moravian Church missionary, arrived with a band of 241 Christianized Lenape. Swarms of gnats plagued early settlers and their livestock for years, and are blamed for Ettwein's failure to establish a permanent settlement there. The clouds of biting gnats eventually drove the indigenous people away. The indigenous people called the insects ponkies (living dust and ashes), and called their village Ponkis Utenink (land of the ponkies), from which the present name Punxsutawney evolved. One legend about the origin of the term ponkies concerned an old indigenous sorcerer-hermit who was said to have long terrorized indigenous people in the region. Eventually he was killed, his body burned, and his ashes were cast to the wind. According to the story, the ashes were transformed into minute living things that infested the swamp land.
In 1907, the Punxsutawney and Claysville boroughs were consolidated and incorporated as Greater Punxsutawney, resulting in a combined population of 9,058 in 1910. A high-grade bituminous soft coal was mined in the surrounding region. Shortly after 1850, mining was being supplanted by factories which included brickworks, glassworks, tanneries, foundries, ironworks, machine shops, and wood planing, flour, feed, and silk mills. By the 1930s these were mostly gone, and townspeople were dependent largely on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad repair shops north of town, and a meat packing plant, in addition to the remaining coal mining and batteries of beehive coke ovens. Punxsutawney is located in Jefferson County.
Punxsutawney had four National Banks chartered during the Bank Note Era, First National Bank of Punxsutawney, (Charter 3030), Punxsutawney National Bank (Charter 5702), Farmers National Bank of Punxsutawney (Charter 5965), and County National Bank of Punxsutawney (Charter 9863), and all four of those banks issued National Bank Notes.
Bank History
- Organized August 7, 1883
- Chartered August 15, 1883
- Liquidated August 17, 1909
- Absorbed by 5702 (Punxsutawney National Bank, Punxsutawney, PA)
The First National Bank was organized in 1883. There was insufficient capital in town to finance a $50,000 institution and more than half of the stock was taken by men from Brookville, Indiana, and Clarion. Chief Justice Gordon, A.L. Gordon, J.B. Henderson, Charles Corbet and others were among the charter members along with T. Pantall, John R. Pantall, Hon. R.C. Winslow, W.W. Winslow, Lon Pantall, Reece Pantall, and Robert Calderwood. James H. Maize was the first cashier and a number of young men since had been trained in the bank to become employees elsewhere. The Citizens' Bank, a state institution was established in 1890 with a capital stock of $50,000 all held in the community. Hon. J.U. Gillespie was the first president, Lon Pantall the first cashier. In 1901 the Citizens' was merged with the First National which increased its capital stock to $100,000. The first bank in Punxsutawney was the old Mahoning Bank, founded in 1870, backed for the most part by the men who owned the Farmers' Deposit Bank of Indiana, Gen. Harry White, A.M. Stewart, James P. Carter, and Dr. R. McChesney. R.C. Winslow was president and M.J. Dinsmore, cashier.[1]
On Tuesday, January 12, 1909, the directors were R.C. Winslow, Levi McGregor, Irvin Simpson, W.W. Winslow, H.E. Ginter, J.B. Phelan, J.A. Jordan, Lon Pantall, and S. Taylor North. The officers elected were R.C. Winslow, president; Levi McGregor, vice president; Lon Pantall, cashier; T.B. Mitchell, assistant cashier.[2]
In July 1909, the consolidation of the First National Bank and the Punxsutawney Nation Bank occurred with the business to be done in one banking room. There would be no change in the management, F.C. Lang remaining cashier and S.A. Rinn, president, except to add several directors of the First National to the board of the Punxsutawney National. The capital stock of the consolidated banks stood at $200,000, surplus $250,000, and deposits of over $1 million. All the books and other property of the First National would be transferred to the other bank in the course of the next 30 days. Miss Ruth Sprankle, teller of the First National would be retained, while Lon Pantall, the efficient cashier of the First National Bank would retire to recuperate his health. This consolidation was no surprise to many as it had been talked about for some time. The First National held a lease on its banking rooms for a period of six years more and it was thought likely the room with the vault would be sub-let.[3]
In June 1910, application was made for a charter for the County National Bank of Punxsutawney, with capital stock of $100,000. The applicants were Ward Brown, J.R. Pantall, O.P. Grube, E.W. Smith and J.E. Pantall. The Zeitler Block, formerly occupied by the First National Bank, was purchased by the new institution and the structure would be remodeled to suit the new bank's needs.[4]
Official Bank Title
1: The First National Bank of Punxsutawney, PA
Bank Note Types Issued
A total of $524,800 in National Bank Notes was issued by this bank between 1883 and 1909. This consisted of a total of 24,544 notes (24,544 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 1882 Brown Back 3x10-20 1 - 5264 1902 Red Seal 50-100 1 - 1606 1902 Date Back 50-100 1 - 138
Bank Presidents and Cashiers
Bank Presidents and Cashiers during the National Bank Note Era (1883 - 1909):
Presidents:
Cashiers:
Other Known Bank Note Signers
- No other known bank note signers for this bank
Bank Note History Links
- First National Bank, Punxsutawney, PA History (NB Lookup)
- Groundhog Day for Numismatists (SPMC PM#337)
- Pennsylvania Bank Note History (BNH Wiki)
Sources
- Punxsutawney, PA, 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