Hawaii: Today in History 8/17
8-17-1858 1st bank in Hawaii opens
August 17, 1858 –Charles Reed Bishop, who had immigrated from upstate New York a decade earlier, and his partner, William A. Aldrich, opened Bishop & Co. — the first successful banking partnership under the laws of the independent Kingdom of Hawaii. It operated from a basement room in “Makee & Anthon’s Building” on Kaahumanu Street. Its successor, First Hawaiian Bank, today is the second oldest bank west of the Rockies.
Honolulu in the 1850s was a raw frontier town. Downtown was a mixture of one- and two-story Western style buildings surrounded by thatched houses. Whaling was still the big industry in the thriving little port and Bishop saw the need for a local bank. On the day Bishop & Co. opened, it took in $4,784.25 in deposits.
1878 –Bishop & Co. outgrew its little basement room and moved to the first home it could call its own, a two-story bank at the corner of Merchant and Kaahumanu Streets. To celebrate, the bank donated $25 each to the Ladies’ Stranger’s Friend Society, the British Benevolent Society, American Relief Fund and German Relief Fund. The building still survives as a law office on the makai side of Merchant Street, between Bethel Street and Fort Street Mall.
