Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

in conjunction with Mr. J. O. Bigelow.1867 TO 1901 125The foreign businessof the New York Agency had grown to very large proportions,and bills of exchange drawn against cotton formed a largepercentage of these dealings. New Orleans was the centrefor cotton shipments, and the representation of the bank inthat city was therefore a logical development of existing business.The following year, 1896, saw the opening of a regularagency of the bank in that city during the winter months. Itwas placed in charge of Mr. Kains, with Mr. F. E. Dench ashis assistant. In July, 1898, Mr. Kains was succeeded as agentby Mr. John Hamilton Fulton, who remained in charge untilthe end of December, 1900, when the agency was finally closedand its business transferred to the Commercial National Bankof New Orleans, 1which was incorporated for this purpose andwas for many years closely allied to The Canadian Bank ofCommerce. This step was necessitated by State legislationin regard to taxation, and proved a happy solution of whathad been a difficult situation. Mr. Fulton remained with theCommercial National Bank first as cashier and then asmanager.In 1904 he was elected a director and vice-president,and in 1910 president. He resigned from the presidency in1917 to join the staff of the National City Bank, New York,of which he became the senior vice-president. A few yearsafter Mr. Kains left New Orleans, he was appointed managerof the branch at San Francisco taken over from the Bank ofBritish Columbia, and he was in charge of that branch at thetime of the earthquake and fire of 1906 2 .The number of branches in 1897 shows the slow growthof the bank's resources at this period. As has been seen, afterthe opening of the Winnipeg branch in 1893 they numbered1This institution has since, by an amalgamation, become the Canal-CommercialNational Bank.An account of these incidents in the history of the San Francisco branch and ofMr. Kains' part in them will be found on page 288. Subsequently he became for atime manager of the San Francisco clearing-house, and in 1914, on the foundation ofthe Federal Reserve banking system, he received the appointment of governor ofthe Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.