here in the '70s and went into the banking business at Kansas City, Missouri, and from there to New York city, where he now resides. In 1901 Mr. Underwood became reminiscent and contributed to the columns of the Muscatine Journal a valuable and interesting account of banking in the west fifty (now) years ago. The article is here reproduced that it may be preserved, because of its value to the future historian of this locality:

Banking in the west forty years ago was a much more difficult business than it is today. Capital had not been accumulated so that the borrower had less upon which to base his loan; security was therefore unreliable; conditions were unstable; currency was scarce and fluctuating violently in value from time to time, often from day to day; bank failures were of frequent occurrence; transportation lines were fewer and subject to more frequent interruption, so that all was uncertain when the best interests of the community and bankers alike were subserved by certainty.

There were porportionately fewer trained bankers for the new towns constantly springing up all over the western prairies. The merchants of today became the bankers of tomorrow.

The law incorporating the State Bank of Iowa, adopted by the state legislature in 1858 or 1859, put our state in the front rank of the western states so far as banks of issue were concerned. It was based largely upon the laws incorporating the state banks of Ohio and Indiana, and in none of these three states were there any failures or losses made in the state banks incorporated under their laws. Most of the banking in Iowa, as in all the western states however, was done by private bankers and it is creditable to them to say that but very few failures occurred among them.

EARLY MUSCATINE BANKERS.

Muscatine fared well in those early days. Greene & Stone, who had been sucessful merchants, were the pioneer bankers and for many years served their town and country well. Their failure in 1861 was caused by the stringency brought on by the breaking out of the war of the rebellion and the consequent closing to navigation of the Mississippi river, for this river was then the great highway which carried to market the grain from the Muscatine county farms and the products of the packing houses of the city.

This failure caused a good deal of embarrassment but it spoke well for Joseph A. Greene and George C. Stone that their creditors were paid in full, and that many of these made large sums out of the lands and property received by them in settlement from the bankrupt firm.

At the date of their failure, Mr. Greene was president of the Washington branch of the State Bank of Iowa, of which Howard M. Holden, once clerk in Greene & Stone's bank, was cashier, and Mr. Stone was president of the Muscatine branch of the State Bank, while Thomas Harbach was cashier. Mr. Greene at once entered the service of the United States as quartermaster and rendered the faithful service in this place that only a good business man can. At the close of the war he returned to Muscatine and was always a good citizen. and a much respected man.

Mr. Stone immediately after the failure went to Chicago, engaging in the grain commission business, suffering the vicissitudes that attended that business in its early days. Later he went to Duluth and St. Paul and recouped his lost fortune in railways in the "Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas."

THEN CAME ISETT & BREWSTER.

Isett & Brewster were the followers and rivals of Greene & Stone, and had in Muscatine a successful career. William Brewster died while a partner and was succeeded by his son, William Cullen Brewster. Colonel Isett went to New York in 1865, I think, formed the firm of Isett, Kerr & Company, and for a time did a large and profitable business.

They became involved in the speculative fever of those wild days and had a short career. Colonel Isett, to avoid bankruptcy proceedings, went to Montreal to make his home and spent the remainder of his life there, returning to Muscatine but once for a brief visit.

William C. Brewster, his partner in 1861, became the first cashier of the Merchants' Exchange Bank upon the reorganization of that concern but soon moved to Davenport, where he made his home for some years. He subsequently went to New York, became a director in the Second National Bank, and finally organized and was the first president of the Plaza Bank, one of the most successful of the smaller uptown banks. His death occurred in New York in 1900.

ABBOTT, DUTTON & PATTERSON.

Abbott, Dutton, & Patterson were banking in Muscatine for a short time. Their business was merged in 1859 into that of the Muscatine branch of the State Bank of Iowa, A. O. Patterson, who was also a lawyer, having been a member of the state senate at the date of the passage of the bill incorporating the State Bank of Iowa. Mr. Patterson became the first president of the Muscatine branch and J. W. Dutton became its cashier.

Chester Weed was the first president of the bank, which included all the branches: Davenport, Lyons, Dubuque, McGregor, Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Iowa City, Muscatine, Washington, Mt. Pleasant, Burlington, Fort Madison and Keokuk.

Messrs. Patterson & Dutton were not conservative bankers and the Muscatine branch was soon in trouble and they were compelled to resign. Because of their bad management, but without any reflection whatever upon his character, capacity or management, Mr. Weed, feeling humiliated, resigned his position as president of the State Bank and Hiram Price, who became a member of congress from the second district, was elected president in his place. He continued as president of the State Bank of Iowa until its existence was terminated by the imposition of the federal tax upon circulating notes of state banks.

Hon. William F. Brannan was one of the original directors of the Muscatine branch and is the only man now living who was connected with the bank at its organization.

Asbury O. Warfield was the first elected cashier of the Muscatine branch but refused to accept the appointment.

Mr. Patterson, who in 1860 lived on the place so long owned by Fred Daut on Mulberry street, went to Pike's Peak in that year and Mr. Dutton went back to Illinois. Charles H. Abbott became Colonel of the Twenty-fourth Iowa Regiment and gave his life to his country.

AFTER FAILURE OF BANK.

After the failure of Greene & Stone in 1861 and Mr. Stone's removal to Chicago, John B. Dougherty was elected president of the Muscatine branch, remaining in that position until January, 1869. Mr. Dougherty will be remembered as a man of high character, great dignity and sound judgment. Joseph Richardson, formerly in the bank of Greene & Stone, returned to Muscatine and was elected cashier to succeed Mr. Harbach. He served the bank and its successor, the Muscatine National, until January, 1869, when he was made president of the National Bank and died while on a visit to his old home in Massachusetts in the summer of 1869, a young man in his thirty-eighth year.

It may be due to the immaturity of my judgment at the time but I look back upon Mr. Richardson with a feeling that he was as good a banker as I have known. He had a wide and accurate knowledge of his business, was tactful, ready and resourceful in every emergency. He was banking in a bad time-from 1864 to 1869-when values were apparently depreciating as the resumption of specie payments was approaching. I remember distinctly the severity with which he spoke of the passage of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, and of the predictions which he made of disaster resulting therefrom. I have lived to see how sound and true he was. From this act have sprung all our currency ills, the greenback and free silver coinage crazes, and we have only just got back to the gold basis and a sound standard. One thing remains to be done to complete our currency reform the retirement of the legal tender notes.

The Muscatine was the first of the branches of the State Bank to change into a national bank. This it did early in 1865. The other branches gradually followed its course.

MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE.

After Colonel Isett took up his residence in New York, the firm of Isett & Brewster was merged into the Merchants' Exchange Bank, which a little later became the Merchants' Exchange National Bank and is now the First National Bank. Peter Jackson was the first president of this bank and William C. Brewster its first cashier. Mr. Brewster's resignation and removal from the city soon came and S. G. Stein became president and Mr. Jackson cashier.

I entered the Muscatine branch of the State Bank of Iowa, a boy, early in 1864. My first duty in those days was the sorting of the bills of state banks which came to the bank in the regular course of its business. They were issued by the hundreds of banks in all sections of the country. All these notes were at a discount, those of New York and New England at one rate; those of the state banks of Indiana and Ohio at another, and others at still different rates, and all