5 Dollars Farmers Bank of Geneva - New York

The Farmers Bank of Geneva operated in the Finger Lakes region during a period when New York's Free Banking Act of 1838 had flooded the state with competing private issues — many backed by questionable securities and several destined for rapid failure. Geneva's agricultural economy gave the bank a relatively stable deposit base, which helped it outlast a number of flashier contemporaries.

The Haxby attribution to Baldwin, Bald & Cousland is worth scrutiny: that firm only operated under that name from 1855, yet this note carries an 1843 date. The plate design almost certainly predates the printer's rebranding, having passed through earlier partnerships in the same lineage.