Finance History | 52 Wall Street — Two Million Dollars Chartered on the Sixteenth of June

People treat Citigroup as a Greenwich Street tower that always cleared global payments.

The first book was a state bank on Wall Street.

On 16 June 1812 the State of New York chartered City Bank of New York with authorized capital of $2 million and paid-in capital of $800,000.

Samuel Osgood, the first Postmaster General of the United States, was elected president.

The bank opened for business on 14 September 1812 to serve a circle of New York merchants who wanted a house that could compete with Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore after the First Bank of the United States lost its charter.

The first dividend was paid in 1813.

The office stood at 52 Wall Street, on the north side between Pearl and William. National City Bank still occupied a worn building on that lot when James Stillman bought the Merchants' Exchange across the street at 55 Wall in 1899 for $3.265 million.

In 1865 the bank took a national charter as National City Bank of New York. In 1897 it opened a foreign department, an early step toward the overseas book later known as Citibank.

The 1998 merger of Citicorp and Travelers created Citigroup. The 1812 charter date is still the date the firm prints on its heritage pages.

The lot at 52 Wall was rebuilt more than once. The name of the bank moved with the deposits.

Photo: National City Bank Building, 55 Wall Street, Beyond My Ken, via Wikimedia Commons.