Dedicated to a vault, Chase saves history

An archivist returned to the roots of Mahoning Valley banking.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The chief archivist from JPMorgan Chase Bank has devoted her attention to preserving Mahoning Valley banking history after Chase's acquisition of Bank One.
"When we merged with Bank One in 2004, we woke up to find that they had a presence in 17 states, and that prompted a year of trying to identify where their historical records would be," said Jean Elliott, vice president for archives at Chase's New York headquarters.
"Our other predecessors were New York-centric, and this suddenly threw us across the Midwest," she said. "We have now over 1,000 predecessors. There were over 800 that came with the merger with Bank One," Elliott added.
Elliott grew up in Youngstown and Boardman, graduated from Cardinal Mooney High School, and received her bachelor's degree in history from Cleveland State University and master's degrees in American studies and library science from Case Western Reserve University.
Elliott visited Chase Bank's downtown offices in Youngstown and Warren Thursday to view historical documents, including wills, stock certificates, bond coupons, board of directors meeting minutes, loan documents, land deeds, insurance policies, audit reports and blueprints for the 1920s vintage bank buildings.
The history of banking here dates to the founding of the Western Reserve Bank in Warren. Chartered Feb. 20, 1812, it was the first bank west of the Allegheny Mountains.
What she found
Among the notable items she found in Warren were fractional currency, including a piece of 25-cent paper currency issued in 1817 by the Western Reserve Bank and a genuine $3 bill issued in the 1830s. Banks each issued their own currency before passage of the National Currency Act in 1862.
Also among the items found in Warren were a 1926 passbook for a savings account bearing 7 percent interest and a framed 1912 bank centennial document.
Found in an antique safe deposit box was a certificate of recognition issued by President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in 1864 to Pvt. George D. Gardner for his volunteer Civil War service with the Union Army as a member of the 164th Ohio National Guard Regiment.
The historical documents will be preserved in Chase's newly built temperature and humidity-controlled archival center at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York City, Elliott said. Tours of the center are available by appointment, and the center is open to researchers. Chase is dedicated to "history and the value that it provides, both internally and externally," Elliott said.
Bank One acquisition
Chase, which traces its roots to 1799, acquired the Chicago-based Bank One in July 2004, creating the nation's third-largest bank, and Chase has been gradually changing bank identification signs throughout the country.
The Western Reserve Bank was the first bank in the Western Reserve, of which Warren was the capital, according to a historical marker on the exterior of Chase Tower at 106 E. Market St. -- the nine-story home of downtown Warren's Chase Bank branch.
Western Reserve became First National Bank in 1863, Union National Bank in 1902, Union Savings and Trust in 1912, Bank One in 1984, and last month, Chase Bank.
The founders of Western Reserve Bank later created Mahoning County Bank in Youngstown, which became First National Bank. It adopted the Union National Bank name when it merged with Commercial National Bank in 1931. Bank One acquired Union National in 1982.
The downtown Chase buildings in Warren and Youngstown have grand two-story balconies and chandeliered marble-lined banking floors. Elliott said she was impressed by the elaborate original brass teller cages at the downtown Warren branch and by the mahogany-paneled boardroom and coffered banking lobby ceiling in downtown Youngstown.
"The architectural detail in this building is rare to find in a functioning branch today," she said of the Warren bank. "It's a beautiful example of early banking design and architecture," she added. Noting that many of these features have been removed in bank modernizations elsewhere, she said she was glad to see that they are still intact here.