National Newark & Essex Bank (N.J.)

Newark Banking and Insurance Company, the city's first bank, opened for business on June 20, 1804 in temporary quarters at the house of Smith Burnet on Broad Street. One year later, the bank's permanent office opened nearby on Broad Street and "Maiden Lane", later to become "Bank Street", in honor of the bank. For the next fifty years, this building served the growing needs of the firm. The city of Newark continued to develop during the first half of the nineteenth century as new forms of transportation linked its market with New York and Philadelphia. During this time the bank renewed its charter, taking the opportunity to change its name to "The Newark Banking Company" (the bank had discontinued the insurance side of the company in 1829 because it was not as profitable as the banking business). Ten years later in 1865, the bank was reorganized as a national banking association, a distinction that freed it from the heavy taxation on state bank notes and changed its name once again, this time to "The National Newark Banking Company." The remainder of the nineteenth century was full of challenges and advancements for the bank. As local markets became large companies serving the nation and not just the city or even the state, the bank's resources reflected similar growth. Early in the twentieth century the bank consolidated with the Essex County Banking Company. This was not to be its last consolidation. Throughout the 1950s the bank continued to transform through a series of mergers and acquisitions with a number of local banks. In 1962 the bank changed its name once again, this time to "National Newark and Essex Bank," a name that conveyed its further expansion. By the late 1960s, the New Jersey Legislature approved new laws that altered the ways banks could do business. These alterations meant that they could operate as holding companies allowing statewide banking and providing broader markets for banking activities. National Newark and Essex Bank took advantage of the new laws and became a part of a holding company named Midlantic Bank Inc. This new holding company was initially comprised of four banks: National Newark and Essex was the lead bank, Sussex & Merchants National Bank represented the northern district, Raritan Valley National Bank represented the central district, and Elmer Trust Company represented the southern district. Throughout the 1970s, Midlantic Bank continued to acquire additional banks, and by the end of the decade was ranked as one of the top seventy banking institutions for its size in the United States.