ST JOSEPH  Florida

The Commercial Bank of Florida 

$5         1833 - ?

Haxby  FL-5 G46

approximate 1.5 inch bottom edge tear at center

Chartered during Florida’s speculative boom of the mid‑1830s, the Commercial Bank of Florida was headquartered at St. Joseph, a short‑lived Gulf Coast port envisioned as a rival to Apalachicola. Though formally based at St. Joseph, the bank’s operations and note circulation extended throughout the Apalachicola River trade network, reflecting the region’s interconnected cotton economy. Like many Florida institutions of the era, the bank was thinly capitalized and heavily exposed to the credit contraction that followed the Panic of 1837, which swiftly undermined confidence in private banking across the territory.

The bank’s collapse was sealed by scandal. In 1837, its president, Hugh Stephenson, fled Florida and was arrested in New Orleans after authorities discovered a trunk containing bank assets and unissued notes. The incident drew national attention and became emblematic of Florida’s unstable banking system, where oversight was minimal and speculative excess rampant. The seizure of these notes explains the survival of remainder examples today, tangible relics of a failed institution caught in one of America’s earliest financial crises.

RUN HUGH RUN!