A CHECK FOR THOUSANDS ON A PINE SHINGLE.
A PIONEER BANKER'S READINESS.
How Joseph C. Palmer, With Some Extraordinary
Material, Wrote for
a Large Sum.
Many different substances have been used to send communications through the mails, from bits of carved wood to leather post-cards. But banks are supposed to be more insistent upon red tape. A stamp and an address will satisfy the postal authorities; ink, paper, and indubitable signature—these are requisites in bank paper. Yet in new countries it is frequently obliged to put up with makeshifts. Here is a story of early banking in California, as related by the San Francisco Bulletin:
Joseph C. Palmer, a California pioneer, and at one time a banker and politician in the early days of California, was a member of the firm of Palmer, Cook & Co., a bank which did an immense business, and whose influence was felt throughout the State.
To show his readiness to adopt original methods in an emergency, it is related that once a depositor called to draw a large sum of money (twenty-eight thousand dollars) from the bank. Mr. Palmer's signature was necessary, but he had been called away to attend to some duty in a lumberyard at a distance of a mile or more.
Thither the depositor hastened and made known his wants and the necessity of having them attended to at once. Mr. Palmer could find neither pen, pencil, ink, nor paper. But without a moment's hesitation he picked up a shingle, borrowed a piece of red chalk, and with it wrote a check on the shingle in large and distinct letters for twenty-eight thousand dollars.
This was good when presented for all the money the depositor had in bank, and it proved an exceedingly good advertisement for Palmer. It gained confidence for the original genius of our first great banker, whom everybody trusted.