2 Dollars The Farmer's Joint Stock Bank, Second Issue

The Farmer's Joint Stock Bank operated out of Weston, Ontario County, New York — a rural community whose agricultural economy made two-dollar notes genuinely functional for everyday farm transactions at mid-century. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson were among the most technically accomplished security printers in antebellum America; the same firm would later merge into the American Bank Note Company in 1858.

New York's Free Banking Act of 1838 permitted any group meeting minimum capital requirements to issue notes backed by approved securities deposited with the state comptroller. The Farmer's Joint Stock Bank was a direct product of that law — and so was the wave of failures it eventually enabled.