Commercial National Bank Records, 1874-1948

The Commercial National Bank was chartered on February 18, 1874. Shareholders included two prominent textile owners from Alamance County, Edwin M. Holt and his son Lawrence Banks Holt. Other shareholders were William Johnston, who later became the Director of the Bank; Robert M. White, owner of White & Sims; Clement Dowd, a leading attorney who served as the banks first president; William J. Black, superintendent with WH Crimminger’s company; John L. Morehead, bank director; Robert Miller, of R.M. Miller & Sons and Joseph McLaughlin a retail grocer and cotton buyer.

Its location on the 200 block of South Tryon Street is where the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, stayed from April 18 to the 25th. Davis actually learned of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination during his stay.

This bank merged with the American Commercial Bank on November 29, 1958. Two years later in the summer of 1960, the bank merged with the Security National Bank of Greensboro under the name of North Carolina National Bank. Since that time it has undergone two name changes, and is now know as the Bank of America, which is the second largest banking institution in the United States.