of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, page 407
BANK AT WILTON. Joseph L. Reed, of Wilton, started the next bank in the county in his own town. He had been a successful stock and grain merchant and felt the need of banking facilities in his own business. Then followed a bank at West Liberty, later another at Wilton, then the Louisa County National Bank at Columbus Junction and Mark Davidson at Wapello.
After the death of Mr. Richardson in 1869, Jacob Butler was elected president of the Muscatine National Bank. Mr. Butler moved to Chicago early in 1873 and took an interest in and became vice president of the Marine Company, of which Jonathan Young Scammon was president. This bank became embarrassed by the bad management of its president in the panic of that year. Mr. Butler made strenous efforts to correct this management but was unable to do so. By reason of this loss and through the shrinkage of values in property owned by Mr. Butler in Chicago, he became embarrassed and as a result of his embarrassment, illness and death soon followed.
In the meantime Alexander Jackson had become a director, to succeed his brother-in-law, Mr. Viele, who died while a director in the bank.
In those early days I had no keener enjoyment than to listen on the rainy days and the cold blustering days of winter, to the stories told around our big stove in the rear of the bank by these old settlers, our directors. They had had experiences which they enjoyed telling, of queer characters that lived in still earlier days whom they would caricature and whose weaknesses and strong points they loved to bring out.
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