1862 The Lyons Bank Wayne County, NY Contemporary Counterfeit

Description

Title: – 1862 – Lyons Bank (not Bank of Lyons), Wayne County, NY; Haxby NY 1296 S5; contemporary counterfeit.
The town of Lyons, incorporated on 1 March 1811, was named after Lyon, France. It became the county seat of Wayne County, which was formed on 11 April 1823 from lands previously in Ontario and Seneca Counties.
The first bank in the town was the Bank of Lyons incorporated on 17 May 1836 with capital of 0,000. As a result of the Panic of 1837 and the depression that followed this bank failed in December 1842.
Ten years later in 1852 De Witt Parshall, a lawyer and highly successful real estate entrepreneur in Palmyra, ventured into the banking business and started a new and completely separate bank called the Palmyra Bank of Lyons. He was its first president and the cashier was M. C. Tucker. On 31 March 1857 he changed the name to The Lyons Bank, and in 1860 moved to Canal and Williams Streets. For a time De Witt named his eldest son, William Henry Parshall, to the position of Cashier. In 1865 after the adoption of the National Banking Act he converted the bank to “The Lyons National Bank.”
This note was printed from plate “C”
by Rawdon Wright Hatch & Edson
New York.
The central vignette presents three seated female allegorical figures faintly labeled beneath as LABOR and COMMERCE. On the left is a vignette of a seated Justice with a sword and scales next to an eagle holding a key and perched on a strong box. Encircling this figure are the words: CHARTERED BY PLEDGE OF PUBLIC STOCKS AND REAL ESTATE - REGISTERED AND COUTERSIGNED.  On the right is a medallion head in an oval. At the center bottom is a small vignette of a farmer cutting grain using a multi-blade scythe.
The note
has a hand written serial number
1283
and dated Jany 1
st
18
62.
It was illegibly signed by the Registrar of the Bank Department, but clearly signed by
Wm. H. Parshall
, Cashier and
D. W. Parshall
, President. The payee was written as
H. Smith.
The back has writing of various initials and what appears to be
Failed Westfall Mass.
Based on the quality of the engravings, this is a contemporary counterfeit. The note is complete, circulated, and in very nice condition. It shows some aging, very minor edge roughness and has a scattering of pinholes.