1 Dollar The Cochituate Bank

The Cochituate Bank took its name from Lake Cochituate, the reservoir that had supplied Boston with running water since 1848 — a piece of civic pride that translated directly into branding for a new commercial bank looking to associate itself with municipal progress. It operated out of the Boston financial district during the early 1850s, a period when Massachusetts alone had over two hundred chartered banks, each issuing their own paper at face value against specie reserves that were rarely as robust as advertised.

The Suffolk Bank system, which dominated New England note redemption at the time, kept most Boston-area issuers in line — but smaller institutions still regularly tested the limits of their redemption obligations.