Bank of North America

The Bank of North America was the first chartered bank in the United States, and served as the country's first de facto central bank. It was chartered by the Congress of the Confederation on May 26, 1781, and opened in Philadelphia on January 7, 1782. The bank's founding was based on a plan presented by Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris on May 17, 1781, including recommendations by Revolutionary-era Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, who was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury by George Washington. Although Hamilton later noted the bank's "essential" contribution to the American Revolutionary War, the Pennsylvania government objected to its privileges and reincorporated it under state law, making it unsuitable as a national bank under the U.S. Constitution. Congress instead chartered the First Bank of the United States, a new bank, in 1791, while the Bank of North America continued as a private concern.