State Street Corporation - Founding History

Founding History

State Street has deep roots in the commercial history of Boston, going back to the days when this city was a bustling shipping port and main business artery for the new republic. In the closing years of the 18th century, a group of prominent Bostonians gathered together to establish a new bank, Union Bank, which would be the third bank in Boston. John Hancock, Massachusetts’ first governor, signed the bank’s charter on June 25, 1792; it was located at the corner of State and Exchange Streets with Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Moses Gill as its first president.

At that time, the street, State Street, was the main thoroughfare in colonial Boston and a significant crossroads in America. Bracketed by the State House at one end and the Long Wharf at the other, State Street was a center of both commerce and politics. It was here, for instance, that the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place. It was also where the famous trial of Captain Kidd took place. And it was on State Street that the first Boston merchant, John Coggan, had set up shop. Many of Boston’s merchant princes and community leaders were associated with Union Bank during the first century of its operation.

The bank, located at 40 State Street, had its charter renewed several times, and in 1865, the directors applied for and received a National Charter, and a new name: the National Union Bank of Boston.

State Street was also known as the “Great Street to the Sea,” and the economic growth of the new bank was closely tied to Boston’s flourishing shipping industry. During that romantic period, sleek clippers criss-crossed Boston Harbor, escorting incoming ships, laden with cargo, to shore. Boston was by the mid-19th century in its heyday as a maritime capital. Some of the wealth from that trade would make its way into the coffers of the bank, and it's stability allowed it to never fail to declare semi-annual dividends.

On July 1, 1891, National Union would have a new neighbor and banking competitor on State Street. On that day, the State Street Deposit & Trust Company was chartered and began business, with offices in the Exchange Building on State Street. The company was started by a group of directors and officers from the Third National Bank, and it opened for business with a capital of $300,000. Shortly afterward, Third National merged with Shawmut Bank, and State Street became entirely independent. In 1897, the bank’s name was shortened to State Street Trust Company.

State Street Trust grew steadily during these early years. From 1900 to 1925, deposits increased from roughly $2 million to over $40 million, and, in 1925, National Union Bank merged with State Street with combined assets of over $57 million. The man largely responsible for the bank’s devotion to its historic roots—- and for much of its steady success during these years was Allan Forbes, serving from 1899 as a recent Harvard grad up until 1955, having been the board chair for five years until his death that year. The identification of the bank with its maritime past would be one of Forbes’s lasting legacies.