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Bank Born of Revelation: The Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
Extract
On January 2, 1837, in Kirtland, Ohio, a bank which was founded upon divine revelation, which had no charter, whose officers were not bankers, and whose capital base was narrow, opened its doors for business. These, characteristics probably did not differentiate the bank too much from the hundreds of other such institutions begun in this period. But the circumstances attending the founding of the Kirtland Safety Society Bank, or more accurately, the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company, and the record of its operations are sufficiently different from the run-of-the-mill wildcat bank to justify a closer look at the colorful history of this institution.
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- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1970
References
1 Brodie, Fawn, No Man Knows My History (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1945), p. 94Google Scholar.
2 Brodie (p. 106) states that the spirit of true Marxian communism was implicit in the whole system. Arrington (see footnote 3) is quick to point out that a large element of free enterprise was contained in the system, since church members were permitted to exercise control over assigned property free from detailed church control.
3 Arrington, Leonard J., Great Kingdom Basin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 34Google Scholar.
4 Brodie, No Man Knows My History, p. 188.
5 History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Period I. History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, by Himself. Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1902–1912. Vol. II, p. 446Google Scholar, as reported in Brodie, p. 189.
6 Sheep herding was a major agricultural activity around Kirtland.
7 Brodie, No Man Knows My History, p. 188.
8 Linn, William Alexander, The Story of the Mormons (New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), p. 148Google Scholar.
9 This journey is perhaps the most vivid testimony to the real purpose of the bank.
10 The “Locofocos.”
11 Messenger and Advocate, July, 1837.
12 Letter to Zion's Watchman, March 24, 1838, as reported in Brodie, p. 197.
13 This may be an additional source of the belief that the bank's notes were backed directly by real estate.
14 Brodie (p. 198) leaves us with the impression that this depreciation was due to market forces. Arrington (p. 14) on the other hand, suggests that they were purposely depreciated to this figure in order to secure notes of other banks in order to meet payment demands. At any rate, the figure indicates serious troubles for the bank on this date.
15 Kennedy, James Henry, Early Days of Mormonism, Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1888), p. 163Google Scholar as related in Linn, The Story of the Mormons, p. 151.