172 Hadden—Early Banking in Wisconsin. 
scended its provisions, the charter could not be repealed by th 
legislature; “that the company would maintain the even tenor 
of its ways as it was not incumbent upon him—dividing a hair 
twixt south and south-west side” to reconcile the contradictory 
clauses, if they existed. 
From this time on, therefore, its growth kept pace with every 
hostile legislative enactment and it was more than ever evident 
that “ Mitchell’s Bank” had back of it a mighty force of public 
opinion. 
Soon after its organization in 1839 the banking had dried up 
the insurance branch of the institution. Only one life insur¬ 
ance policy was granted during the entire history of the com¬ 
pany. It seems a customer of Geo. Smith, the president of the 
company, wished to borrow $200 at 6 per cent, interest. Smith 
insisted that if he wished to borrow, he must take a life policy 
in the company for the same time and rate. The arrangement 
was carried out, and the story goes that this was the only life 
risk taken, for the customer died before the maturity of the 
note, and thereafter the “life department” was discontinued. 18 
A portion of its business also was connected with the Federal 
land office and its public agents. The company bought public 
lands, advancing to the government their value in gold and 
silver according to requirement, and gave a contract to deed 
them to the farmers at the end of four years at an advance on 
the government price. 19 As early as 1841, the government 
agents, after vainly seeking loans in Missouri and Illinois, bor¬ 
rowed $16,873.01 of this company at 10 per cent, interest. 
Nowhere else in the West could they have secured such good 
money on such easy terms. For ten years, besides the govern¬ 
ment dealings, the company carried on the entire deposit, dis¬ 
count, and exchange business of the territory and state, and for 
thirty years carried, on its books and in its vaults, one third of 
all the Milwaukee deposits. 20 Its certificates of deposit in¬ 
creased during the decade as follows : 21 
18 Western Banking , in Bank, and Curr. Pamph., vol. 19, p. 9,1879. 
19 Flower, History of Milwaukee , p. 1083. 
20 Wisconsin Historical Collections , vol. XI, Butler on Alexander 
Mitchell. 
21 Flower, History of Milwaukee, p. 440. 
