For Presidents Day, observed on George Washington’s birthday, the ABA Banking Journal presents this selection from its archive. In this passage, Sterling Whitbeck, treasurer of Nonotuck Savings Bank in the 1920s, recounts the involvement of then-President Calvin Coolidge in the bank. Coolidge was the bank’s attorney early in his career and later served as a corporator, trustee and eventually president of the bank. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, Nonotuck Savings Bank was succeeded by TD Bank.
—THE EDITORS
At about the time that Calvin Coolidge entered the practice of law in Northampton, Mass., a new mutual savings bank was established. Mr. Coolidge established his offices in the same building and adjoining those of the Nonotuck Savings Bank. It was only natural that the treasurer of the savings bank should call upon Mr. Coolidge to tend to the legal work of the bank. The bank grew very rapidly and must have kept Mr. Coolidge rather busy searching titles for the real estate mortgages and giving legal advice to the officers.Until public service required Mr. Coolidge to spend a larger part of his time in Boston, he visited the bank almost daily. The bank commenced business in April, 1899, and at the first meeting of the corporators Mr. Coolidge’s name was added to the list of the corporators. At the next annual meeting he filled a vacancy on the board of trustees. This connection he now holds with the bank.
In 1902 he was elected a vice-president of the bank. During his term as Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, the office of the president of the bank was vacated, and Mr. Coolidge was elected to this position, which he filled until 1921, when he tended his resignation, as his duties in Washington did not permit attendance to the duties incumbent upon the office.
As far as we know, the Nonotuck Savings Bank is the only bank in which Mr. Coolidge has ever held office.
