FEBRUARY 10, 1808 – STATE OF OHIO GRANTS CHARTER TO BANK OF MARIETTA

1808 – STATE OF OHIO GRANTS CHARTER TO BANK OF MARIETTA
This was the first bank chartered by the State of Ohio – and one of the earliest of any kind in the state. Once the charter or license was granted, the bank’s directors and stockholders (as with all banks) were provided the incredible privilege not available to farmers, artisans, or workers of any kind – the license to print money. Their paper bills were deemed legitimate by the state government by agreeing to accept them in payment of certain fees, etc.
“There seemed to be one set of laws for bankers, and another set for everyone else. For subsistence farmers working dawn till dusk the sums involved seemed obscene, and the principles of banking defied common sense. Armed with a charter, a banker could print money on demand to manufacture, out of thin air, a substance other people would pay him to possess. Yet he didn’t own it to begin with: it wasn’t anything but a promise, written on paper, to pay gold on demand—and he didn’t have the gold.”  (From Greenback by Jason Goodwin)