Historic checks on display at museum

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

dastolfo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

On April 13, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln got a tidy sum of money out of the bank for personal use. He wrote a check made out to cash for $800 — roughly $10,000 in today’s currency.

It’s likely that he never got to spend it. On the next day, Lincoln was assassinated.

What did Lincoln need the cash for? We’ll likely never know — although conjecture has it that his wife liked to spend money and the president intended to pay her bills.

The check written by Lincoln is part of an exhibit on display at the Arms Family Museum of 24 historic checks. Each one has a story behind it, although in most cases the details have been lost to the shifting sands of history.

The exhibit is owned by Huntington Bank. Frank Hierro, president of the bank for the Mahoning Valley Region, and Dave Sabine, regional head of trust for the bank, were at the museum Tuesday to open the exhibit, which will run through July 17. Sabine is also president of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society.

The exhibit includes checks written by several Ohio-born presidents, as well as Jonathan Trumbull, who was governor of Connecticut in the 1790s when the state purchased the Western Reserve, which later became the northeast portion of Ohio. Trumbull County is named for him.

Other checks in the exhibit were written by literary giants, including Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain.

Huntington Bank acquired the trove of 70 checks in 1982, when it acquired Union Commerce Bank of Cleveland, whose president owned them. The checks have been mostly kept locked up, but the bank has now begun to tour the exhibit in cities in the six-state region where it operates.

Many of the checks were written for personal reasons. “The exhibit brings the aura of a historical figure,” said Hierro, “but you can see that they were also average citizens who had to conduct everyday business.”

The exhibit also includes checks signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Edison, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Susan B. Anthony.

The Anthony check was written by the civil-rights activist in 1897 to Harriet Taylor Upton of the National Women Suffrage Association of Warren for $5.63 for “office supplies.” Upton, of Warren, was president of the suffrage group. Today, the Upton House, on Mahoning Avenue in Warren, which was the headquarters for the suffrage movement, has been restored and is a National Historic Landmark.

The Arms museum, 648 Wick Ave., is open from 1-5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $4 ($3 for seniors, $2 for children).