First National Bank

We know that the First National Bank of Mt. Vernon is organized in 1900. Kenneth Greer has done phenomenal research. I had always heard of the Mt. Vernon Bank, a private bank owned and operated by the Majors family, which was disbanded in 1900.

In just the last few years, some careful observation has supported the existence of the bank. I found a deposit slip. My great-grandfather’s papers. He is, I am fairly sure, the only man who managed to serve simultaneously on the board of directors for both the Merchants and Planters National Bank and the First National Bank of Mt. Vernon (thanks to Ken Greer for pointing this out to me). Then I find a bank draft for an insurance policy with the receipt stamped as paid through the Mt. Vernon Bank. Hey: my clan don’t throw papers away. And then, (who keeps these) – I am going through the calling cards following the funeral of an ancestor from the 1890’s and I chance on the card with sympathy from the cashier of the Mt. Vernon Bank.

Yes, I am overwhelmed by paper. But yes, I do intend to try to get organized before I die. When my grandmother Hicks moved in the year 1920 into the home which I now own on U S 67 west of Mt. Vernon, she boxed up a lot of cards, letters, and mementos for the move; moved in; and promptly put the boxes in a closet where they were never opened until… So I find her grandmother’s veil, worn by that widow of the Civil War for some 40 years until her death in 1898 and put away again in 1920 until I opened the large box of mementos in 1987. And letters, more veils and odds and ends. You can’t save it all; trying to decide what might be of interest is a different matter. Good luck all you hoarders in exercising the discretion; I’m failing I fear.

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