page_title: Girard Bank
section_title: Founding and early history
hierarchical_section_title: Girard Bank / Founding and early history
caption_attribution_description: Image of the en:First Bank of the United States.
context_page_description: Girard Bank was a Philadelphia based bank founded by Stephen Girard in 1811. The bank was acquired by Mellon Bank in 1983 and then, two decades later, by Citizens Bank.
context_section_description: After the charter for the First Bank of the United States expired in 1811, Stephen Girard purchased most of its stock and its facilities on South Third Street in Philadelphia, then reorganized it under his direct personal control. He hired George Simpson, the cashier of the First Bank, as cashier of the new bank, and with seven other employees, opened for business on May 18, 1812. He allowed the Trustees of the First Bank of the United States to use some offices and space in the vaults to continue the process of winding down the affairs of the closed bank at a very nominal rent. Although Pennsylvania law prohibited an association of individuals from banking without a charter, it made no such prohibition on a single individual doing so. Philadelphia banks balked at accepting the notes that Girard issued on his personal credit and lobbied the state to force him to incorporate, without success.
  Girard's Bank was a principal source of government credit during the War of 1812. Towards the end of the war, when the financial credit of the U.S. government was at its lowest, Girard placed nearly all of his resources at the disposal of the government and underwrote up to 95 percent of the war loan issue, which enabled the United States to carry on the war.
  After the war, Girard became a large stockholder in and one of the directors of the Second Bank of the United States. Upon his death in 1831, his own bank passed to a trust according to his will. Merchants of the city chartered the Girard Bank to buy the banking assets from the trust and carry on the business. Ironically, in view of its history, Girard Bank was one of the pet banks to which Treasury Secretary Roger B. Taney transferred the government's Pennsylvania deposits in the Second Bank of the United States. After the passage of the National Banking Act, the bank reorganized in 1863 as Girard National Bank.
  In February 1903, Girard Bank acquired the business of the Mechanics National Bank. Five years later it constructed a new headquarters on Broad Street, known as the Girard Trust Building, designed by Frank Furness.  In 1930, the bank began construction of a new tower adjoining the domed 1908 building, designed by McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1931.  The tower was located on the site formerly occupied by the West End Trust Building (1898-1928).  The 1908 domed building today serves as The Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia hotel.
caption: First Bank of the United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It later housed the Girard Bank.
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