The Bank of Nova Scotia in Minneapolis, 1885-1892 [By] D.L.C
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THE BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA IN MINNEAPOLIS, 1885-1892 D. L C. Galles IN A MODEST ADVERTISEMENT on the financial largest and the Canadian Bank of Commerce was the page of the Minneapolis Tribune on Friday, Octo second largest.^ ber 20, 1885, the Bank of Nova Scotia let the pubfic In contrast, the Bank of Nova Scotia in early 1885 know that its new Minneapolis branch was open for was a relatively small regional bank with its headquar business at 414 Nicollet Avenue on "premises lately oc ters in the provincial capital of Halifax and its business cupied by Jobbers' Association." The branch was ready confined almost entirely to the Maritime Provinces. Not to make loans, buy and sell exchange, and make col until 1888 did it open a Montreal office, and not until lections "in all parts of Canada on the most favorable 1897 did it launch a Toronto branch. Excluding its terms." ^ Winnipeg office, which the bank opened in 1882, the For the next seven years the branch bank in Min Minneapolis branch was its first venture outside mari neapolis conducted a profitable business that contrib time Canada since the bank's founding in Halifax in uted measurably to the young city's rapid expansion 1832.3 into a major financial and commercial center. Import The factors leading to the decision to establish this ing experienced banking personnel, sophisticated bank distant financial outpost in Minnesota tie together the ing techniques, and, most important, capital, the Bank economic histories of the Maritimes, the whole of of Nova Scotia set standards of success and conduct Canada, Minneapolis, and Winnipeg. It is in Winnipeg that local institutions sought to emulate. Reciprocally, that the story begins. profits that the Minneapolis branch made helped the In the spring of 1881, when the province of Manitoba mother bank in Halifax to weather the economic crises was eleven years old, Winnipeg experienced an ac affiicting eastern Canada throughout the 1880s and celerating boom in real estate. Hastily-formed financial early 1890s. syndicates helped fuel the economic frenzy with easy There was nothing singular about a Canadian bank credit until city lots on Winnipeg's Main Street com establishing a branch in the United States. Canadian manded higher prices than did those on Chicago's banks had long had close relations with New York and Michigan Avenue. In the spring of 1882 the boom usually kept substantial balances there. Some Canadian slackened, although rapid building maintained pros- banks also maintained offices in other United States cities. The Bank of Montreal, for instance, had a Chi cago office. So did the Canadian Bank of Commerce " Minneapolis Tribune, October 30, 1885, p. 6. untd 1886, when it became "very difficult to lend sur ' Victor Ross, A History of the Canadian Bank of Com merce, 2:108, 125 (Toronto, 1922). plus monies profitably" and that Chicago office had 'History of the Bank of Nova Scotia, 1832-1900, 57 to close. In addition, the Canadian Bank of Commerce (Halifax, 1901). maintained an office in New Orleans to finance cotton shipments (a hostile legislature finally drove it out) Mr. Galles is a graduate of St. Johns Preparatory School, and a San Francisco branch. These, however, were Collegeville, Minnesota, and received his A.B. in history in large institutions: the Bank of Montreal was Canada's 1970 at George Washington University, Washington, D.C. This is his first published article. 268 Minnesota History perity in Winnipeg for a time. Then, in 1883, the Closed out at home by the recession and established market crashed, paper land values crumbled, and in financial habits, Nova Scotia financiers looked to the solvencies multiplied.* West — to more prosperous Ontario and Quebec — Speculation, unfortunately, had not been confined for outlets for loanable funds."^ to Winnipeg. Eastern Canada had been caught up in It was this search for sound outlets that led the Bank the wild excitement, too, and many investors lost of Nova Scotia to cstabli.sh an office in Winnipeg. The heavily. A poor crop in Ontario in 1883 and industrial bank, in fact, had acquired new management in 1870 overproduction compounded the problem to produce and between that year and 1882 embarked on a pro a national recession. Assets of the Canadian Bank of gram of rapid expansion, establishing twenty new Commerce, for example, shrank from about $26,000,000 branches in addition to the one in Winnipeg.^ in 1883 to approximately $22,000,000 in 1885 and to The bank unluckily opened its Winnipeg branch in some $19,500,000 in 1887.-' March, 1882, at the crest of the real estate boom, and This economic downturn was only cyclical for Can it suffered sizable losses when land values crashed in ada as a whole, but for the Maritime Provinces it was 1883. In 1884 the bank found it necessary to write off part of a long-term decline. Nova Scotia's wooden ship $130,000 from the reserve fund "to meet large losses building and shipping industries (which had produced developed during the year." Thomas Fyshe, the bank's magnates hke Samuel Cunard) had been made obso general manager, wrote: "It is quite evident that any lete by the introduction of iron-hull boats and steam accommodation paper in Winnipeg is intended to be ships into maritime commerce. The Maritimes' once carried till doomsday, which generaUy means the fail enormous merchant marine dwindled to almost noth ure of all parties." ^ Accordingly, in September, 1885, ing. At the same time European production of beet agent Henry C McLeod was sent to Winnipeg to sugar increased, and this dealt a severe blow to the liquidate the branch. sugar-cane economy of the West Indies which had been a major market for Nova Scotia cod. Throughout the FROM THE FINANCIAL PAGE of the Minneapolis last quarter of the nineteenth century Nova Scotia was left to eke out a living from its forests, fisheries, and Tribune, October 20, 1885. railroads, and profitable outlets for loanable funds The im- OtfTicral were drying up.*' all stock drown oi rlybegnu. (counts of icttve for F. H. PEAYEY & CO., isoliritt'd. Another complicating factor for the Nova Scotia icy stock •OLI. way, hut bank was that these traditional industries possessed 2.50, with N" good, $3(§^ re long-established sources of credit elsewhere. The lum Authorize ither more Capital pa ber industry regularly obtained capital through firms by wttip- JOHN DK 1 in Britain, the fishing industry in the Gaspe Peninsula it l^.50@? Extra Facilities for Furnishin;:? Corn FKXI>AU. area was supplied credit by firms on the British island !, Choice ftve lifchX aud Oats. of Jersey, and the mining industry received credit'from Hive; the John reely, aad |{. B. I Britain and the United States as well as local sources. ' tn ncttvc John : Tvxtras, Rooms 62 and 63 Chamber o[ Commerce, Fred' >-, 20(a81c; H. Ali , l(l®lS.j; iiourg ase, i^3c. MINXEAFOLIS, IffXS. .1., or »«.50 'W. L. Morton, Manitoba: A Iiistory, 200-201 (To milE SKCLiilTY BANK OF JUNXfi.-sOTA. ronto, 1957). .rassellliiK -Ross, Canadian Bank of Commerce, 2:95. n Ic todc •^nNNKAl'OM*!. ! Ai'i-Olill modern te, Capital $i.O;.-;.'Ni(> | iJunkcrs >, ' G. G. Campbefi, The History of Nova Scotia, 277, 279 er «tozcn Miri)ln9 -Wi^OOO I -—- (Toronto, 1942); H. A. Innis and A. R. M. Lower, eds., Se '^: prairie T. A. II;irriM>n. Prestilcui; II (1. IfnviiMUi. Vh'f- :i»Igei', per I'rcsidciit; W. M, rcimcv, (-'a^Iiier; i-'. A. Lli::ui- lect Documents in Canadian Economic History, 1783-1885, A 50. berlitin, Assii^tnnt Cftshior. < ;U»Ita!. 700-702 (Toronto, 1933). e new In A general bniijciax bus-iness transaoi.M. le ilrc.^sed ^ Innis and Lower, Select Documents, 726; Thomas H. teus, iV^Tc Raddall, Halifax, Warden of the North, 230 (London, ducks per THE CITIZEN'S BANK; 1950). j; Ureksed No. 416 >icollet Avenue. -r. K. H. sweetund Authorized Capital $500,C00 'Bank of Nova Scotia, Monthly Review, August-Sep nre some- Paid TJp Capital I), K:. Hi tember, 1952, n.p. This magazine is hereafter cited as brl; Mtis- lOP.OOO j Monthly Review. , 40(JU-i30.. -Vgcneral bmiUUig bu^inoss trniikii.McMl. t STfi "History of the Bank of Nova Scotia, 58; Monthly < fair, bnt K. ^. WOOjnvoifTU, Vir,..Pn':,id<"it ^ Hr. umn uiiitulnedt. CiKOUCiK .B. rsin-:wnail>. raxlu,.]- i Jivcmic-.. i» firmer. Review, August-September, 1952, n.p. Webster's New In I ifithii. Vi ternational Dictionary of the English Language (second :JOc; Crtb- n. (\ M< i.Kon, I V-ai. ufti per doz, J)A\II-:L WATK]:S. : u^:ni li. edition) defines accommodation paper as "A bifi, draft, or rserndbh, s, per bu, ! .1. W. MH note made, drawn, accepted, or endorsed by one person H. perbu, for another without consideration, to enable that other to iiOc; red Bank of Nova Scotia, OFFICE, 4t4 NICOLLET AVENUE, iI Afic)un raise money or obtain credit thereby." »eef, Ijind- Premises lately ornMiph-a by -lul.l.n-s' \ssoi-lriiio:i, t cd, Oig/,e; essed, 5@ lOo; vcni. KffUlc; 1. ftTcUc: cssed, m Canaman cunPn,Y bought, and .>olte<.iinns mr.ao i TKT IZ the poRt • llinvL I'liVui'iUih' 1^ rilis. [ rices are to !; smoked 218 lilts fall- H. F. LIILIBBIBGE & CO.. to Deftra En route, McLeod passed through Minneapolis, the large grain and manufacturing business carried on where he discovered what he considered to be a dearth in Minneapolis, a much larger banking capital could of local banking institutions. He determined that a be profitably employed. Most of our larger mill branch of his own bank in Minneapolis could realize ers and manufacturers are forced to seek accommoda considerable profits.