Planters Bank of Tennessee (Nashville, TN)

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finding myself very often sick with chills and fever and withal very lonesome and with greatly diminished comforts, I determined to look around for another companion, which I found in the person of Sarah Ann Smith, the present companion of my woes and sorrows. She was born in Goochland county, Virginia, June 24, 1806, and was the daughter of Captain George Sterling Smith, of Madison county, Alabama, a sterling family and a sterling woman as I have always found her to be. We were united in marriage at her father's house on the 24th of March, 1824, by the Rev. Willie Blount Peck, the stationed Methodist minister at Huntsville, Alabama. After our marriage, I made only two crops on my farm, which proved to be so sickly. We suffered so much with chill and fever that I determined to return to Nashville to my old homestead, in December, 1826. After recovering my health, I was elected, in April, 1828, chief book-keeper in the United States Branch Bank, at Nashville, Jno. Sommerville was the Cashier and John Nichol the President. I remained in said bank about two years at a salary of $800 per annum, when an offer was made to me of the cashiership of the bank of the State, by the Legislature of Tennessee, at a salary of $1,500, which I accepted and gave a satisfactory bond for faithful performance. I took charge of the bank in the spring of 1830. The bank was in great disrepute by the bad management of its former officers, and being under the control of the Legislature I had my reports to make to that body. At the end of two years, for which period I was elected, the Legislature re-elected me over Daniel Graham, a strong opponent and a man well qualified, by a large and satisfactory majority. This was a triumph with which I was much pleased, as it was a full endorsement of the manner in which I had managed the affairs of the bank. Meanwhile, the charter was granted for the Planters' Bank of Tennessee, with a capital of $2,000,000, the stock being all subscribed and payments made sufficient to put the bank into operation. The Board of Directors unanimously elected me Cashier on the 4th of March, 1834, and Edward B. Littlefield, President, each at a salary of $2,000 per annum. The bank was successfully and profitably conducted until 1837, when the country was visited with a pecuniary revulsion such as we have never before or since witnessed in the United States. It produced the suspension of all our banks and broke up thousands of our enterprising people and was the forerunner of the bankrupt law, which remained in force for four to five years. During all this time, I was prosperous and happy, when a large commission house in Nashville, with a branch of their business in New Orleans, was forced by suit into bankruptcy with a liability resting on me for them for over $70,000. The amount of this liability was more than my property would command, but being young and full of vitality, I stood up against the tide of adversity, and in the course of time surmounted the pressure, felt myself again a free man, and rejoiced over the success that many of my friends believed that I would never be able to achieve. I remained in the Planters' Bank as Cashier until Sept. 1852, when, to the great surprise of the Board of Directors, I handed them my resignation, to take effect the 1st October following, or sooner if the Board could find a suitable man to fill my place. I was retained until about the 15th of December following, not to my damage but against my inclination, as I had made other business arrangements. While an officer of the Planters' Bank, I had the satisfaction to believe that I pleased the Board of Directors; and, as to the outside world, it affords me pleasure to say that they regretted the step I had taken. I had served in the bank about nineteen years, during which time I never was absent from my post for private recreation but once as long as ten days—a visit to Bon Aqua Springs—but several times for a few days, and frequently on business for the bank, from 1838 to 1843. No discordant feelings ever existed between the President and myself during the period we served together as executive officers, and I cultivated the most friendly relations with all the subordinate officers of the bank, many of whom still survive. On the 1st of November, 1852, a partnership agreement commenced between Wesley Wheless and myself, in the private banking and brokerage business, under the name of Hobson & Wheless. Our business was prosperous and our union as partners a happy one. The free banking system passed into a law in February, 1852. We availed ourselves of all the rights and privileges in that law, and on the 1st day of August, 1853, changed our business to the name and style of the Bank of Nashville, with an issue of bank notes of $50,000. We prospered beyond our most sanguine expectations; purchased ground on College street, and erected a banking house, which, for comfort and convenience, surpassed anything of the kind in the city. This seemed to increase and give a greater prosperity to our business, but in October, 1857, a general pecuniary panic commenced in New York, and ran over the country like fire in dry stubble. Our Bank fell a victim to its force, and in one week every bank in the city shared the same fate by a suspension of specie payments. The Bank had enjoyed a reputation and credit that few houses could have acquired in so short a period. We put the institution into immediate liquidation, as the junior partner had agreed to unite his future destiny with Hewitt, Norton & Co., of New Orleans, and take charge of a branch of their house in Liverpool, England. In a short time thereafter, the unfortunate civil war broke out between the North and the South, the result of which is known to have been disastrous to all classes of business in the South. My partner and son-in-law, Wesley Wheless, died in Liverpool, England, on the 30th of April, 1861. When I received intelligence of his death, I left home for Liverpool on the 21st of April, 1861, and returned to my home on the 26th of May, bringing with me my daughter and children, and her husband's remains, which are deposited in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, a monument designating the place of his burial. In my hurry to finish the paper, I omitted to say anything about the war with England, commencing in 1812. I was then too young to become a soldier, and consequently took no special part in the struggle.