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Here For Generations:
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Here for Generations: The Story of a Maine Bank and its City tells the remarkable tale of a town and a bank that have moved in concert for 150 years. It captures their sweeping history through triumph and tragedy and brings to life the fascinating people and events that have shaped their journey.
The bank's roots were set in the 1830s, when the bustling city of Bangor lured the best and the brightest of Maine's adventurers to its port and commercial center. Bangor was the Lumber Capital of the World, complete with all the intrigue of a riverfront boomtown-potential riches and busted dreams, wealthy lumber barons and rowdy lumbermen and sailors. Among those who arrived in this city on the rise were Elijah L. Hamlin, Joseph Wheelwright, and twenty-two other men. Most came from humble origins, but all came with a dream. Through hard work and vision they built businesses and institutions and emerged as the city's great leaders.
In 1852, these public spirited men of substance - businessmen, lawyers, artisans, and merchants - came together in a philanthropic effort to create Bangor Savings Bank, an entity designed to help the city's poor and its working men and women save money. Encouraging thrift was considered good for society during an era when there were no pensions, no unemployment checks, no social security, and no disability insurance. At that time most banks were strictly commercial ventures, aimed at businesses and designed to make money for investors.
Together, Bangor Savings Bank and Bangor have seen the rise and fall of the great lumber economy and survived the economic depression of the 1870s that nearly killed the bank. They experienced the Flood of 1902, rebuilt following the Great Fire of 1911, and hung tough during the Great Depression. And they watched the city become the region's premier service and retail hub.
Here you will find all the details of that drama, from the city's founding by Jacob Buswell, to the grand dreams of railroad evangelist John A. Poor, to the rise of Freese's as the Fifth Avenue in Maine, to the opening of the Bangor Mall. And you will also find the bank's rise from its simple origin as a nineteenth-century repository for Bangor widows, orphans, and daily laborers to a statewide leader in the twenty-first century - a prime source of financial services, mortgages, and the capital that fuels the economic engine of the Pine Tree State. It has been a remarkable ride.
Excerpt from Here for Generations:
With the first blush of spring in 1852, the city of Bangor was entering
its glory days, a two-decade run of growth, improvements and increased
sophistication. To be sure, signs of problems existed for those who looked
closely. Bangor remained stubbornly and dangerously tied to a single economic
engine - lumber. The value of the famed white pine shipped from city ports
was on the decline as stocks dwindled, giving way to less valuable spruce.
The nation was moving westward, further from Bangor as a lumber source,
making the city and the state ever more isolated. Shipping would soon
begin its decline and with it Bangor's importance as a shipping port.
But for most, these were problems probably hidden deeply in the recesses
of the mind or defiantly ignored. Bangor, after all, was a city built
on optimism and dreams.
So, instead, entrepreneurs discussed a rail link to connect Bangor with ports in Canada to shorten shipping routes to Europe and open up Eastern Maine to potential new riches. Soon, the great Norombega Hall would rise on the Kenduskeag and host political rallies and great speakers. Bangor was designated a port of entry, and a customs house would shortly be under construction. Bangor men, lumber and machines were going to aid in the California Gold Rush.
The economic troubles of the early 1840s were long past and banks and businessmen were fully recovered. Many of the men who arrived in Bangor during the 1830s to make their fortunes were now older men and richer - some surely beyond their wildest dreams. They now turned their attention more often to city improvements and the trappings of fine society. Yet, at the same time, not far from the mansions that sprouted on hillsides like dandelions and not far from the society balls, tea parties and carriage races, there was a Bangor struggling with change. There were shanties along the riverside, overcrowded tenement houses along unpaved roads, unsanitary housing conditions that bred disease, and poor farmers struggling against inhospitable northeastern climes. Increasing numbers of journeymen toiled in the expanding industrial economy, mill workers sweated in sprawling lumber mills and domestic servants worked and lived in the Bangor mansions. As in all cities during an industrial age, there was a developing wage-earning or laboring class, a developing middle class and, of course, the poor. With these developments came an increase in the social needs of the poor, a growing issue in Bangor. The number of residents at the city's almshouse doubled to more than three hundred between 1845 and 1853. Then from 1853 to 1858, a period which encompassed an economic depression, the number of people receiving assistance more than tripled, from 309 to 1,027.
One philosophy still in place in some circles held fast to the old Yankee standbys: industry and thrift. It was believed that hard work and the discipline to regularly save money, no matter how small the amount, was the only way to build wealth and the best way to help lift people from poverty or raise the poor and "middling classes" to higher stations. Thrift and industry would also lead to a temperate life, a major concern in nineteenth-century Maine, especially in a town as steeped in religion as Bangor.
Clearly, many people, even if they had a place to do so, could not save much at a time. Although, the Whig and Courier pointed out that a regular "pittance" could grow into a significant amount over time not only through accumulated savings but with the added value of interest. Given the incomes of some during the era, time was definitely needed.