Suffolk Bank

Suffolk Bank was a private clearinghouse bank in Boston, Massachusetts, that exchanged specie or locally backed bank notes for notes from country banks to which city-dwellers could not easily travel to redeem notes.^[1] The bank was issued its corporate charter on February 10, 1818 by the 38th Massachusetts General Court to a group of the Boston Associates (including Patrick Tracy Jackson and Daniel Pinckney Parker), and the charter's holders and bank's directors met periodically from February 27 to March 19 at the Boston Exchange Coffee House to discuss the organization of the bank. On April 1, 1818, the bank opened for business in rented offices on State Street until the bank moved permanently to the corner of State and Kilby Streets (currently occupied by either 75 State Street or Exchange Place) on April 17. In addition to Jackson and Parker, other prominent shareholders of the bank included William Appleton, Nathan Appleton, Timothy Bigelow, John Brooks, Gardiner Greene, Henry Hubbard, Augustine Heard, Amos Lawrence, Abbott Lawrence, Luther Lawrence, William Prescott, Dudley Leavitt Pickman, and Benjamin Seaver.^[2]