From the Richmond Whig, 4/18/1865, p. 8, c. 1
THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK IN RICHMOND.
Every bank, banking house and exchange office in Richmond having been swept away by the late conflagration, great embarrassment is felt by the business community, not only by reason of the absence of a secure depository for cash and valuable paper securities, but from the want of the usual banking facilities and the impossibility of making the ordinary exchanges.
In this connection it affords us great pleasure to be able to announce that a number of prominent capitalists, seeing the extreme public need, have met and organized The First National Bank of Richmond, to be conducted under and in conformity with the National Currency Law. The gentlemen who have associated themselves for this purpose are Messrs. Franklin Stearns, Horace L. Kent, Robert A. Lancaster, Wellington Goddin and others, of Richmond. Mr. Lewis McKenzie, of Alexandria, and Messrs. Hamilton G. Fant and W. L. Hodge, of the District of Columbia. Mr. McKenzie is well and familiarly known to the peole of this portion of the State. Mr. Fant, having been elected President of the Bank, has withdrawn from the banking business in Washington and will make this city his home.
A number of our oldest and most substantial residents have already taken stock.
The Bank will be opened for business with as little delay as practicable.