50 Cents Bank of Lowville

The Bank of Lowville was a private bank operating out of Lewis County, New York, and by 1862 the fractional currency shortage caused by Civil War hoarding had pushed countless small institutions — and even private merchants — into issuing their own scrip to keep commerce moving. Kellogg's 50-cent note belongs to that wave of necessity issues, produced when federal coin vanished from circulation almost overnight after the outbreak of hostilities.

The Kappen reference places this firmly in documented obsolete fractional territory, but Lewis County issues of this period are genuinely scarce survivors — most small-town scrip was redeemed aggressively once federal Postage Currency arrived in August 1862.