HISTORY OF EARLY BANKING IN WISCONSIN. 
CLARENCE BERNARD HADDEN, B. L. 
Introduction. 
During the early part of this century, trading, in the section 
of the country now known as Wisconsin, was carried on by means 
of barter, small coin, town scrip, tickets “good for one shave” or 
a “pound of tea,” and an ever-changing, unreliable currency. 
What is now the state of Wisconsin was, previous to 1836, a 
portion of the Territory of Michigan. Among the very few 
first banks incorporated in the Territory were the banks of Ma¬ 
comb and Calhoun counties, the bank of Raisin, and a bank at 
Detroit. 1 2 These banks had a capital of $50,000 each; were not 
to issue notes in excess of their capital; and the loans, dis¬ 
counts, and endorsements of each were not to exceed one-fourth 
of the circulation. 
But in those back-woods days it was easy and profitable to 
flood the neighboring country with notes entirely unsecured and 
frequently either irredeemable or nominally convertible at a 
bank whose location was unknown. The term “wild-cat, ” 
which characterized the currency of that period, was originally 
applied to the notes of a Michigan bank upon which there was 
engraved the picture of a panther. 
To show the extent to which the circulation was inflated and 
the currency thereby depreciated in some parts of the Union, 
Comptroller Knox says: 5 “In 1814, 37 banks went into opera¬ 
tion in Pennsylvania, with an aggregate capital of less than 
$17000,000, of which only one-fifth was paid in. Many had but a 
nominal capital, consisting chiefly of notes given by the stock¬ 
holders for the amount of their shares. * * * Of these 37 
banks, fifteen failed within four years from the date of their or¬ 
ganization. * * * The amount of currency issued was fre- 
1 Green Bay Intelligencer , April 5,1831. 
2 Finance Report, 1876, Compt. RepI, p. 147 et seq. 
