Almost everyone knows that Bank of the Manhattan Co. was founded 136 years ago to supply the City of New York with "pure & wholesome water." Not so well known is the fact that Manhattan's $575,000,000 Chemical Bank & Trust was originally chartered 112 years ago to manufacture "blue vitriol, alum, alcohol, tartar emetic, refined camphor, borax, copperas, drugs, medicines, paints and dyers' colors." Like its elder rival, Chemical got into banking by opening an office of ''Discount & Deposit."
The trustees abandoned pure chemicals for pure banking in 1832 after the...
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