CHASE MANHATTAN CORPORATION, THE

American holding company incorporated Jan. 22, 1969, to acquire, as its main subsidiary, The Chase Manhattan Bank, NA, and to develop other related financial services and operations. The Chase Manhattan Bank itself had resulted from the merger in 1955 of the Bank of the Manhattan Company (founded 1799) and The Chase National Bank (founded 1877). Its headquarters are in New York City. On April 2, 1799, at the urging of such civic leaders as Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton (later noted rivals), the New York state legislature chartered the Manhattan Company to build a water supply system for New York City. The original capital ($2,000,000) was so large that the directors quickly voted to use surplus funds to open an office of discount and deposit, and on Sept. 1, 1799, the Bank of the Manhattan Company was opened at 40 Wall Street. In 1808 the company sold its waterworks to the city and turned completely to banking. Although growth was steady, the bank's real expansion began after the onset of the 20th century. In 1918 it merged with the Bank of the Metropolis and thus acquired the first of many branch offices. In 1920 it merged with the Merchants' National Bank of the City of New York (founded 1803, with Alexander Hamilton's promotion), and in 1929 it acquired the International Acceptance Bank, Inc. (founded 1921), thus venturing into various kinds of foreign-trade financing. The Chase National Bank was organized Sept. 12, 1877, by John Thompson (180291), who named the bank in honour of the late U.S. Treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase. (Thompson had earlier helped found the First National Bank, a predecessor of Citibank and Citicorp.) Chase National's growth was phenomenal, and by 1921 it had become the second largest national bank in the United States, without benefit of mergers. Then there followed a long series of mergers: Metropolitan National Bank (1921), Mechanics and Metals National Bank (1926), Mutual Bank (1927), Garfield National Bank (1929), National Park Bank (1929), Equitable Trust Company, including Seaboard National Bank (1929), and Interstate Trust Company (1930). Such mergers resulted in a proliferation of branches and extensive foreign affiliations. On March 31, 1955, Chase National Bank (then the nation's third largest bank) and the Bank of the Manhattan Company (the 15th largest) merged to form The Chase Manhattan Bank. The creation of The Chase Manhattan Corporation in 1969 was part of a general movement in American banking to establish holding companies to head banking operations and other operations such as finance companies, ordinarily legally excluded from the purview of banking. In 1996 The Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with the nation's second largest bank, the New York-based Chemical Banking Corporation (q.v.), to form the largest bank in the United States. The merged bank kept the name Chase Manhattan Corporation.