More on Mount Vernon, Rhode island

Keen business eyes were focused on a process by which western Rhode Island could profit by the rapid growth of Providence. Leverage through banking was a process by certain leading families with names such as Place, Frye, and Holden. Mount Vernon, a small area near Foster in Moosup Valley, held a store which was also a bank. In general banks held private funds which were lent, and for safety, probably no more than 5% of a wealthy man's income might be placed there. Mount Vernon bank was a radical exceptionⁱ

Pardon Holdenⁱⁱ in the 1830's had a $1,540 investment which was ¾ of his estate.

We have a nice description of this bank's early days in an historical recollection by Rachael Knight Budlong, about 1880.

The Mount Vernon Bank was situated in Foster near the Coventry line on the Plainfield Pike or stage road about two miles east of Rice City. The founders of the bank were Col. Nathaniel Stone, Pardon Holden, Elisha Fish and Peleg Place. The bank was chartered about 1824 and commenced operations in the fall of 1825, with Peleg Place as Cashier and Nathaniel Stone as President. The bank was kept for a few months in the west front chamber of the two storied house, which was owned and occupied by Pardon Holden. It was afterwards removed to a stone building which had been built by Dr. Thomas Carpenter and used for a while as a store after which it was sold to Pardon Holden. This building, together with a shed, stood a short distance west of his house, and was leased by him to the bank for as long a time as it should be used for banking purposes after which it should revert to Holden or his heirs.

Mount Vernon village, called after the bank, was a thriving village at that time. There were then two stages on the road, each driver carried a long tin horn which he blew before coming to a dwelling house. The stage house or tavern was kept by Elisha Fish, and was later sold to Moses Potter.

Mr. Holden was an enterprising man. He owned a large country store, which at that time meant to buy and sell everything. He had a plough shop for the manufacture of cast iron ploughs.

…

Peleg Place was the first cashier and a stockholder. He filled that office for eleven years when, becoming infirm from age, Charles M. Stone was chosen to take his place, which he held for eight years, when in the spring of 1844, he removed to Providence to take charge of an agency connected with the bank, a large amount of the business being done in the city. Raymond G. Place was the next and last cashier.

The daughter of Pardon Holden remembers distinctly riding home from Providence with her father, the latter bringing large sums of money in his breast pocket, often times not arriving until dark, something never done at the present time. He went to and fro two or three times a week without molestation although completely unarmed. Mr. Holden was a large and exceedingly powerful man fully able to cope with any opposition he was likely to meet in those days. He served the bank in this and every way in which he could further its interests until his health failed. Afterwards the packages of money were sent by the driver of the mail stage or any person considered perfectly reliable and not a dollar was ever lost in transportation. Fifty-five years ago {c. 1825} there were very few houses this side of the bridge.

It is difficult to put the pieces together, but it appears that the men who ran the bank took assets from providence and applied them to business schemes in the Foster area, and in turn took raw materials, processed them, and returned those at a premium profit to Providence. By 1850, the branch in providence was extremely successful and the bank managed significant assets for the time. We know this by a coincidence, an inside-job robbery that made headlines. At the time the bank had about $60,000 in capital stock, and $41,000 in circulationⁱⁱⁱ.

There was also a trade announcement:

Foster.— The Mount Vernon Bank, at Foster, Rhode Island, was entered between Saturday, the 4th of September {1852}, and the following Monday morning, and robbed of $ 10,300 in bills of the bank. About $ 7,000 were of the denomination of $ 50, and numbered mostly from No. 400 to 500, $ 2,000 of which had never been put in circulation. The remainder were in bills of $ 10, $ 20, and $ 100. The bank has issued the following advertisement: —

Caution.— The Mount Vernon Bank, of Foster, hereby cautions the public against receiving bills of the bank of the denomination of $20, $50, and $100, issued prior to this date. All parties holding bills of those denominations, which have been put in circulation by the bank, are informed that said bills will be redeemed on presentation at their counter.

By order of the Directors,

R. G. Place, Cashier

A rare 1852 deposit specimen

The signatures of Raymond Place and Henry Whitman are seen on this 15 May 1856 note. It is likely one held once by the Rhode Island Historical Society. Other species show that by 1 January 1857, a new president signed.

More trouble ensued in 1852^iv when:

Mount Vernon Bank V. Charles M. Stone.

Where a bill makes charges of fraud, which are not established at the hearing, the bill will be dismissed, notwithstanding it states other grounds upon which relief might have been granted, if not blended with the allegations of fraud.

In Equity. The Mount Vernon Bank was a Bank located in Foster, and the defendant was from the 8th of June 1844 to the 29th of May, 1850, their agent for the purpose of transacting the business of the Bank in the city of Providence, where the plaintiffs provided him with an office and books to be kept in the office, in which to record the business of his agency, and they paid him as such agent a salary of five hundred dollars per annum.  The bill alleged first, that the defendant had not fully accounted and had refused to deliver and exhibit the books of the Bank to the plaintiffs, and, in the second place, charged that the defendant fraudulently concealed the said books, fraudulently used the money of the Bank, and by fraudulent representations obtained a release or discharge of a portion of said account, and a surrender of the bond given for the faithful discharge of his duties as agent. The bill prayed for a decree for an account, a delivery of the books of the Bank, a surrender of the release obtained from the plaintiffs and a return of the bond. … After a careful examination of the evidence in relation to the charges of fraud, we feel bound to say that the plaintiffs in our judgment have failed to prove them.

The bank, essentially, was in deep trouble, and on an attack from within. A faction, by force or by subtlety, was attempting to commandeer the bank's assets.

An 1856 declaration^v .

MOUNT VERNON BANK.—87 Westminster Street {Providence, R.I}.

Incorporated, 1823. Capital, $92,778. Henry Whitman, President; Raymond G. Place, Cashier. Henry Whitman, Ira Brown, Raymond G. Place, Robert Knight, Wm. Hill, Giles M. Nichols, Thomas S. Battey, Whipple Phillips, Amos Fuller, John Henry Ormsbee, Thomas M. Remington, William H. Collins, Sterry Fry, Directors. — Annual meeting, first Monday in September. Dividends payable, first Mondays in September and March. Discount, Mondays and Thursdays.

Two names were highlighted by this writer, above. The first is the brother of Robie^vi Place, Raymond Gardiner Place, and the other, Whipple Phillips, the brother of Jeremiah Phillips, and uncle of Whipple V. Phillips. Note also that the 1852 robbery was by men whose last names were Fuller and Place –  black sheep of the family? Stone was attacked by a lawsuit. The bank was turbulent, and things needed to settle down.








The Mount Vernon Bank was declared^vii publicly “broken”, that is bankrupt or defunct, by 26 September 1857. It seems that the new president could not turn the bank around.

iThe economic & social transformation of rural Rhode Island, 1780-1850, p. 104 ff.

iiPardon Holden and Daniel Wood were plowshare makers as early as 1823 in Foster. See The Providence Gazette, 20 March 1823, page 1, ad.

iiip. 762 of The Bankers Magazine, Volume 2, 1949, for the year 1848.

ivMarch Term, 1852, Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 1854 Volume 2. By Thomas Durfee, Providence.

vp. 86, Rhode Island Register, In same issue, p., 166, W.V.B. Phillips is listed as a store keeper in Foster for the year 1856, published by George Adams (Volume II).

viSpelling during her life varied from Rhoby to Robie.

vii 26 September 1857 Hartford Weekly Times, page 2, colum 7. listed the Mount Vernon Bank as one of several banks suspended.    

Was Peleg Place of Mount Vernon, Rhode Island a Whig?

This blogger has made a circumstantial case that Jeremiah Phillips' family was a Republican-Democrat (i.e. democratic) under the influence of the two Daniel Howard's (father and son), as was much of north Foster, Rhode Island, later identified with Foster Center, Rhode Island.

The voting tended to be a 2:1 ration of Republican-Democrats to Whigs until the Dorr Rebellion, at which time the Daniel Howards switched to the "Law and Order Party".

From whence the Whigs?

Mount Vernon, Rhode Island.

How do we know this?  The most powerful authority political parties had from Andrew Jackson onward was the ability to appoint a local post master.  In the 1840's, when "franking" (the ability of a congressman to mail free mail, propaganda) became fully authorized, the post master also became the local precinct captain, in today's parlance.

Here is what I would call a "smoking gun". (I love Google as it allows the direct copying of many primary documents into Blogger).  On 22 June 1841, Peleg Place was appointed by Tyler as the postmaster.  The document is listed below, the preface by the president and Postmaster General, and page 22 listing the notable Peleg Place, of the Mount Vernon Bank.

One does not get to be a local postmaster lightly.  It means communing with the Governor, the U.S. senators, likely contributing to the party significantly, and getting the vote out.  If Peleg Place was a Whig in 1841, then the cashier, Raymond G. Place, would also be a Whig.  This would indicate that a youthful Robie A. Place, then of Rice City, would also have been Whiggish, though unable to vote.

This leads to a scenario:  After the Dorr Rebellion, Daniel Howard the younger, and Horace Howard, his son, were Law & Order men.  The voting patterns of Foster, Rhode Island slowly began to change.  At the same time of the disintegration of the Whigs, and the split of the Republican-Democrats to "Democrats", and the beginning to the "Republican Party", Jeremiah Phillips died, and James Wheaton and Whipple, V. came directly under the influence of the more conservative Raymond G. Place, their guardian.

Therefore, we can almost exactly time the transition of this branch of the Phillips family to the Republican Party during the years between 1844 and 1849, the most formative years of James (b. 1830) and Whipple (b. 1833).

Foster, Rhode Island, Contributes to War of 1812

This is a small snippet relating to Jeremiah Phillips' early life.  He was only 14 years old, so he likely did not contribute, but as Foster had only about 2,000 inhabitants, an expenditure of 100 days of labor in building fortifications, the community would be aware of the contribution.

Sorting Out All Those Daniel Howards

This blogger thinks that the untold story of how two Daniel Howards, the older and younger, influenced much of the democratic-republican voting of the 1830's and 1840's in Foster, Rhode Island - and Jeremiah Phillips and his family.  They were by all accounts of towering height, prodigiously long lived, somewhat resembling another hero - Andrew Jackson - and as honest as the day is long.  The people of Foster Center adored them, and they were each elected to office for more than 5 decades.  The son of Daniel Jr. was Horace, and he, too, was highly influential.

Here is a little extract I composed from a reference source.

Daniel Howard the younger.
Even he has that Andrew Jackson look.
His father, it was stated, more so.

The Real Andrew Jackson

_____


From a History of Isaac Howard of Foster, Rhode Island and his Descendants who have Borne the name Howard, by Daniel Howard, Windsor Locks, Conn., 1901.

In the beginning was Isaac Howard, birth year unknown, birth town unknown.  He came to America in 1722, and landed at Marblehead, MA.   In  afew years, he made it to Rhode island, and settled west of then-Warwick (the future Greene Station, of Coventry township).  Then he moved to Gibb's Pond, then to Rice City (Vaughn's Hill), then in 1752 settled on a plot of land south of the future Foster Center.  In 1755 he built a house, replaced years later (1831) by grandson Gorton Howard.

He married one Martha Rice of Coventry having eight known living children.  One of the youngest was named Daniel born in then-Scituate, later Foster.  Before discussing him, it must be noted the significant trait of the Howard family – their enormous height, and their proclivity to long life.

Isaac Howard died 4 November 1776,  leading guesses by his family that he was born about the year 1700.

Daniel was born 20 July 1752, though it is unknown why his first name was chosen.  Family history presents a curious coincidence that on 28 September 1753 Isaac purchased 20 acres of land on the Moosup River from a Daniel Abbot of Providence.

The original Daniel Howard married one Dorothy Clarke 14 February 1776.  He acquired 40 acres of Isaac's farm, and years later was the site of the so-called Howard Hill school house.  By all accounts he resembled President Andrew Jackson and was six-feet-five-inches tall.  He was justice of the peace for 15 years, and served in the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1790, the year Rhode island ratified the U.S. Constitution.  He was town clerk for 25 terms dying in office.  He died 14 September 1827.

Of this Mr Daniel Howard there were ten children, his namesake, Daniel, born 6th on 15 March 1787.

His education was in the local schools being taught by one Benjamin Dolton of the University of Dublin, Ireland.  Daniel was known by his outstandingly beautiful handwriting and was for most of his father's clerkship, his assistant.  Upon Daniel the elder's death, Daniel the younger took the town clerk's office and held it for 25 years.  It is this Daniel who married Jeremiah Phillips' sister.  This Daniel died in 1879.

He had one son, Horace born 31 January 1810.  He was elected as one of two delegates to the late summer 1842 state constitutional convention defending suffrage.

The Daniel Howard (A.M.) and writer of the Howard genealogy was born in Foster, R.I. On 15 December 1864.  This Daniel later became principal of Windsor Lock, Conn.

This Daniel Howard's father was Pardon Tillinghast Howard (born 2 August 1839, m. 3 May 1863, still alive in 1901); Pardon Tillinghast Howard was son of Horace Howard, who was son of Daniel Howard the younger, the son of Daniel Howard the elder, the son of the family founder Isaac..