Gold Standard National Bank, Marienville, PA (Charter 5727)
Gold Standard National Bank, Marienville, PA (Chartered 1901 - Closed (Merger) 1970)
Town History
Marienville is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jenks Township, Forest County, Pennsylvania. Other names for the community have included "Marion" and "Marionville". Marienville is a major point on a well-known ATV trail. It is the gateway to the Allegheny National Forest and its hundreds of miles of trails for ATV, snowmobiles, hiking, and horseback riding. Each May and October, nearly 1,000 ATV enthusiasts come to Marienville for Tour-De-Forest, an organized leisure ride. The annual winter festival features an inspiring snowmobile torchlight parade. Nature lovers flock to Buzzard Swamp for spectacular wildlife and bird watching, including bald eagle and osprey.
Pennsylvania Route 66 is the main street, leading northeast 24 miles to U.S. Route 6 at Kane and southwest 27 miles to Interstate 80 near Clarion. Pennsylvania Route 899 leads south from Marienville 10 miles to Clarington. Marienville is the location of the SCI Forest state penitentiary. According to the 2010 census the population of Marienville was 3,137.
Marienville had one National Bank chartered during the Bank Note Era, and it issued National Bank Notes.
Bank History
- Organized January 29, 1901
- Chartered February 25, 1901
- Opened for business April 11, 1901
- Bank was Open past 1935
- For Bank History after 1935 see FDIC Bank History website
- Merged into The Warren National Bank in Warren, PA, October 30, 1970
On Wednesday, April 23, 1902, a gale sweeping over the country at the rate of 50 miles an hour made what would have proven but a small blaze under ordinary circumstances a cyclone of fire sweeping over the town of Marienville. Property which covered more than half the territory of the town was burned and included every valuable business house except the Forest Hotel and the Gold Standard National Bank building. The loss was estimated at $200,000 to $250,000, with insurance amounting to about one-third of the latter amount. The fire started in the residence of Mrs. J.T. Smith, at about 9:45 a.m. on the second floor of the building and before it was noticed the flames were about bursting through the roof. This house was located on the street on which the B. B. & K. Railroad entered town, and close to the business center. When the people who discovered the fire rushed into the Smith house the members of the household did not know it was on fire. In an inconceivably short space of time the flames broke through the roof and then the fierce wind that was blowing caught them and carried the fire to Hoover's livery stable and to Baughman's meat market, and from thence spread to the Keystone Hotel, one of the leading buildings of the town. Of course the town was inadequately supplied with apparatus, which consisted of a small chemical engine, for fighting the fire, and there was no supply of water that would have any effect upon the flames in such a hurricane as was blowing. A desperate stand was made when the Keystone Hotel was burning to save the Gold Standard Bank building and the Forest Hotel and the railway station, all of which stood on the opposite side of the railroad and street from the Keystone. Everybody, guests and all who were near, worked with a will, and they managed to save the hotel and bank, but it was impossible to save the station. The flames crossed the railroad track, swept over the station and it was gone in a flash, and then burned several cars a carload of flour, several cars of lumber, a car of coal and got in the lumber yard and licked up about 600,000 feet of lumber, and burned out about half a mile of railroad track, so that a transfer had to be made at that point.
In January 1903, the stockholders elected the following board of directors: C.W. Amsler, Cecil Gross, D.B. Shields, J.C. Campbell, A.D. Neill, L.S. Mensch, T.J. Payne, H. Shannon Keck, and I.M. Shannon. The directors elected the following officers: I.M. Shannon, president; D.B. Shields, vice president; H. Shannon Keck, cashier; and C.W. Knapp, assistant cashier.
On May 9, 1921, yeggs forced an entrance to the Gold Standard National Bank at Marienville and rifled the vault and eight safety deposit boxes, making their escape with between $25,000 and $30,000. The burglary was not discovered until 8 o'clock the next morning and absolutely no clue could be found upon which to base an investigation. Police of surrounding towns were notified, but they had little information to guide them in their efforts to apprehend the criminals. Acetylene gas was believed to have been used by the burglars to burn off the locks of the vault, although there was a suspicion that an electric burner may have been used. The locks were burned off completely, a job that would require at least 20 minutes if the right tools were used. After gaining entrance to the vault the safety deposit boxes were opened in the same manner. The rear window was protected by an iron screen. This was pried loose and the bars bent upward sufficiently to permit entrance. Once inside the safe-crackers took precaution against being detected or their light being seen, covering the big front window with a blanket. There was in addition to the vault a safe in which the larger part of the bank's funds were kept. This was undisturbed. The bank was located in a two-story frame building about 20 feet distant from the tracks of the B&O Railroad. Finger marks were found on the bulb of an incandescent near the vault. It was not, known whether the yeggs utilized the current for burning the locks or if it was removed to be replaced with an extension light to aid them in their work. Everything was in ship-shape when the bank was opened, the yeggs having taken pains to right everything disturbed other than the vault. An empty pint whisky bottle was found near the vault. An effort was being made to preserve the finger marks for possible use later on.
The Gold Standard National Bank was established 20 years earlier, the anniversary having recently been celebrated. It had capital of $125,000 with a surplus nearly doubling that amount and deposits of $375,000. W.A. Croasmun of Red Cliffe was president. The directors were L.H. Mensch, W.H. Pickens, D.B. Shields, R.A. Dieble of Warren, Dr. W.E. Vogan of Kane, C.W. Amsler of Clarion, and T.J. Reynor of Marienville. This was the first robbery of any note in Marienville with the exception of the post office that was burglarized a number of years earlier.
Early on Wednesday morning May 3, 1922, a fire broke out in the second story of the Gold Standard National Bank building which was a brick structure, and soon the fire was beyond control. There was no adequate fire-fighting equipment and the whole town was threatened. The fire speedily consumed the bank building, spreading to the Marienville Express office owned by W.H. Pickens, the department store of David Riser and the moving picture theatre of Frederick Morter. From there they swept into a residence district and six residences were destroyed, and finally reached the Marienville Glass Company's plant and the feed mill of Samuel Mealy. When the fire got a start amongst the frame structures after destroying the bank building it spread so rapidly that the whole town was threatened with destruction and calls for assistance were sent to Kane about 25 miles distant. The Kane Fire Department responded promptly, but had a hard time getting over the dark and rough roads between the two places. The car in which the chief and four others were riding was upset and badly wrecked, but the speedy arrival of the fighting apparatus enabled the Kane firemen to get the flames under control at about 3 o'clock, but not until they had licked-up the glass plant and feed mill in which a majority of the working-men of the town were employed. The B&O railroad tracks through the town were put in dangerous condition by reason of the fire burning the ties under the rails and traffic was suspended. The statement of loss was estimated at upwards of $100,000. Marienville suffered from many disastrous fires in the past.
The night of November 2, 1932, for a second time, the Gold Standard National Bank was robbed by a gang of six. The bandits held up Frank R. Johnston, 46, his wife, Sarah, 44, their daughter, Eleanor, 18, and her friend, Fred Pickens, 17, at the Johnston apartment over the bank. The family was held captive until a time lock opened the bank’s vault at 7:50 on Thursday morning. Johnston freed himself from wire bonds which held him and gave the alarm less than 10 minutes after the robbers fled with $7,500 in currency. That night the bank cashier was ordered to take the bandits to the bank and open the vault. He told them that a time lock prevented the opening until 7:50 in the morning, so they decided to stay for the evening, putting the Johnston's and young Pickens to bed in adjoining rooms while one of the criminals stood guard with a gun. Throughout the night the strangely assorted party waited for the time lock to swing the big vault open. The gags were removed to give the victims a chance to breathe more freely, and the wire was loosened. The bandits remained alert when a brother of Johnston called at the apartment at 6:30 o'clock. With the bandits' guns covering, Eleanor called out to the brother that Johnston was ill in bed. At 7:50 o'clock, the leader of the gang snapped his watch shut, called "let's go," and took Johnston into the bank. The remaining five spread out on the streets and guarded the bank and the apartment. Johnston was forced to unlock the door to the bank and to open the doors which barred access to the vault which the time-lock had sprung. Alter looting the vault and loading the currency into the cars, the bandits returned Johnston to his apartment and bound him again, but they neglected to gag him. Young Pickens had managed to gain partial freedom from his bonds and helped Johnston to crawl to a window and call out to some persons across the street. John Kelly, owner of a restaurant across the street, ran up to the apartment and freed the quartet. Telephone wires to the bank had been cut, but the alarm was sent to adjoining towns from another telephone across the street. The Kane substation of the state police received the alarm at 8:05, fifteen minutes after the actual robbery, and three troopers were sent to Marienville immediately. Police said that a garage man in Marienville unwittingly aided the bandits during the night. The repairman helped pull the bandit’s car from a ditch on one of the Marienville Streets. He said it was a Chevrolet sedan without license tags.
On Friday, November 25, 1932, State police announced that three men arrested in Ohio, confessed to robbing the Gold Standard National Bank at Marienville. The troopers said that about $700 of the $7,500, taken in the raid, was recovered in a house at Akron, Ohio, and on the person of one of the suspects. The trio gave their names as Robert Wilson, Marienville; Frank Sunday and Marshal Van Meter, both of Akron. Wilson was captured a day ago in Canton, Ohio, while Sunday and Van Meter were apprehended in Akron Wednesday. Police said Frank R. Johnson, cashier of the bank, would be asked to go to Butler to see if he could identify the men as members of the gang which robbed the bank of $7,500 November 3. Wilson was the son of a clerk in the Mensch hardware store in Marienville and was said to have made his home intermittently in Youngstown during the past three years.
In January 1933, the following officers and directors were elected: T.J. Reyner, president; R.A. Dieble, vice president; W.H. Pickens, vice president and secretary; D.E. Vogan, C.M. Chipps, E.O. Burcher, and G.E. Wray, directors. The board elected Robert H. Pickens, assistant cashier and Mabel Burcher, teller. Ill health aggravated by all-night imprisonment in his own home resulted in the resignation of F.R. Johnston, cashier. The vacancy was not immediately filled. The trio responsible for the job was sentenced to from 15 to 30 years in the Western Penitentiary by Judge D.U. Arird, November 28, 1932.
In October 1933, almost eleven months to a day, a gang of bandits invaded the quiet little northwestern Pennsylvania village of Marienville again over the week-end, looted the post office of $1,670 in cash and stamps, and escaped unnoticed. Entering through a rear door of the post office-general store of L.H. Mensch, the bandits knocked off the combination to the safe and scooped up all its contents. The loot included $1,080 in new currency for the Gold Standard National Bank, $440 in stamps and $150 in cash and checks. Five hundred money orders also were stolen.
On October 30, 1970, the Gold Standard National Bank of Marienville became the Marienville Office of the Warren National Bank. The purchase ended a 69-year period of history during which the Marienville bank operated as the Gold Standard National Bank. It was the only bank to use "Gold Standard" in its title adopted just after President McKinley signed the Gold Standard Act in 1900.
In the run-up to passage of the Gold Standard Act, the nation went through a decades-long epic political battle over the relative value of gold and silver, a battle that tested whether one of those precious metals should be preferred over the other in the U.S. monetary system. Introduction of paper currency during the Civil War complicated this debate because it promised to redeem the money in either gold or silver upon demand.
With the acquisition of the Marienville bank, the Warren National Bank had ten offices in Warren, Forest, McKean and Elk Counties. The eleventh office in North Warren was under construction and planned to open early in 1971. In addition to the main office and two branches in Warren, there were offices in Kane, Youngsville, Sheffield, Tidioute, Tionesta, and Johnsonburg. The present personnel in Marienville would continue to serve patrons, according to James C. Torrance, president of the Warren National. The staff included Harry Russell, cashier, Charles Baxter, assistant cashier, Violet Mensch, Mrs. Margaret Carter, and Mrs. Louise Huffman, tellers. The board of directors of the Marienville bank would act as an advisory board to the Warren National.
Official Bank Title
1: The Gold Standard National Bank of Marienville, PA
Bank Note Types Issued
A total of $940,590 in National Bank Notes was issued by this bank between 1901 and 1935. This consisted of a total of 70,480 notes (57,344 large size and 13,136 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 - 2908 1882 Brown Back 50-100 1 - 334 1882 Date Back 3x10-20 1 - 3500 1882 Date Back 50-100 1 - 100 1882 Date Back 3x50-100 1 - 49 1882 Value Back 3x10-20 3501 - 5331 1902 Plain Back 3x10-20 1 - 5831 1929 Type 1 6x10 1 - 1354 1929 Type 1 6x20 1 - 404 1929 Type 2 10 1 - 2174 1929 Type 2 20 1 - 414
Bank Presidents and Cashiers
Bank Presidents and Cashiers during the National Bank Note Era (1901 - 1935):
Presidents:
- Irvin M. Shannon, 1901-1906
- David B. Shields, 1907-1910
- Alfred D. Neill, 1911-1920
- William Asa Croasmun, 1921-1923
- Lewis Henry Mensch, 1924-1927
- Thomas Jefferson Reyner, 1928-1933
- William Henry Pickens, 1934-1934
- Clare Monroe Chipps, 1935-1935
Cashiers:
- Harry Shannon Keck, 1901-1909
- David B. Shields, 1910-1923
- Roy Amann Deible, 1924-1928
- Frank Rea Johnston, 1929-1932
- Eugene Stewart Fry, 1933-1935
Other Bank Note Signers
- There are currently no known Vice President or Assistant Cashier bank note signers for this bank.
Wiki Links
- Pennsylvania Bank Note History
- General information on Marienville (Wikipedia)
- General information on Forest County (Wikipedia)
- General information on Pennsylvania (Wikipedia)
Sources
- Marienville, 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
- The Clarion Democrat, Clarion, PA, Thu., Apr. 18, 1901.
- The Clarion Democrat, Clarion, PA, Thu., Apr. 24, 1902.
- Pittsburgh Daily Post, Pittsburgh, PA, Wed., Jan. 14, 1903.
- The Kane Republican, Kane, PA, Tue., May 10, 1921.
- The Clarion Democrat, Clarion, PA, Thu., May 4, 1922.
- The Kane Republican, Kane, PA, Thu., Nov. 3, 1932.
- The Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, Thu., Nov. 3, 1932.
- Warren Times Mirror, Warren, PA, Fri., Nov. 25, 1932.
- The Kane Republican, Kane, PA, Sat., Jan. 14, 1933.
- The Kane Republican, Kane, PA, Fri., May 19, 1933.
- Bradford Evening Star and The Bradford Daily Record, Bradford, PA, Mon., Oct. 9, 1933.
- The Kane Republican, Kane, PA, Fri., Nov. 6, 1970.