Fall of legendary local banker resonates today
A good if not a very prudent man forfeited his sterling reputation, hundreds of small investors lost their life savings, and the grand expectations of a whole generation were irretrievably lost.
One-hundred years ago this winter the world of J.V. Thompson came crashing down, and Uniontown, to use a phrase I heard from a survival of that era, was never the same.
Now, you’ve maybe never heard of Thompson, and 100 years ago is, well, 100 years ago. It’s four or five generations into the deep recesses of the past.
Why should the troubles of 100 years ago matter today? For one thing, there are lessons to be learned. For another, it’s a crackling good story. To open our minds to the past is like visiting another land. It can be, and often is, exotic, foreign, and full of surprising twists and turns.
J.V. Thompson was a banker. As such, he built the tall, yellow brick building that still stands today at the corner of Pittsburgh and Main streets in Uniontown.
As a banker, he made lots of money. He made more buying and selling coal properties in Fayette County as well as in Greene County and in West Virginia.
The local press liked to brag that he was as wealthy as Andrew Carnegie and H.C. Frick. He wasn’t, but it was a nice to think so. That he was flush with money there was no doubt: when he returned from a monthslong around-the-world honeymoon with his second wife in November 1904, the newlyweds moved into the estate west of downtown that’s known today as Mt. Saint Macrina.
Then, it was called Oak Hill, and there J.V. and Hunnie (his first wife, Mary, died) played host to the elite of Uniontown. Occasionally, bigger fish landed in J.V.’s pond of luxurious living. The famed Polish pianist Paderewski put in an appearance. In his honor, J.V. bought three Steinway pianos.
On his son Andy’s behalf he built Fox Hill, next door to Oak Hill. For his other son, John, there was Linger Longer, a wooded estate in the mountains. For the whole family, there was Friendship Hill. Yes, that Friendship Hill, the home of Albert Gallatin now owned and operated by the National Park Service.
Thank goodness J.V. had the good sense to keep the home pretty much as he found it.
On the whole, J.V. was a careful, prudent man, once likening sound banking practices to a woman’s reputation: besmirched once, its good name was gone forever. (I told you it was long ago.)
What led J.V. to deviate from the narrow path we may never know. What we do know is that a small knot of anxious bank patrons gathered on the rain-splattered sidewalk outside the First National Bank on the morning of Jan. 15, 1922, responding to the closing of the bank on the orders of the U.S. comptroller of the currency.
J.V. was caught dipping into the till, probably with the thought that he could always make things right.
It was the beginning of J.V.’s travails. In New York City in an attempt to make good on millions of dollars in lost savings, he told the big city reporters he would return to Uniontown with enough cash to save both himself and his bank. Things never worked out the way he anticipated. Slapped with hundreds of law suits by forlorn savers, J.V. spent the remainder of his days staving off further disasters.
Thanks to Andrew Mellon, his apparent benefactor, he did manage to hang on to Oak Hill. So he didn’t lose everything, unlike his partners in the lucrative coal property business.
For a certain portion of local residents — for lack of a better term, let’s call them Uniontown bluebloods — J.V.’s downfall changed everything. These bluebloods were devastated. This was the basis of the statement made to me in the 1980s by an elderly woman who remembered the dark days following the Thompson bankruptcy: “Life was never the same.”
Blind and desperately ill, J.V. died in an upstairs bedroom at Oak Hill in September 1933. He was determined, right up to the very end, to reclaim what he thought was his true vocation: a coal land baron in the land, or county, of coal.
What lessons might we draw from all of this? Thanks to New Deal reforms, lost savings are no longer in the cards for anyone with up to $250,000 in the bank. We might, however, keep an eye on banks that over extend themselves, exposing whole sectors of the economy to sudden, unfortunate jolts. I’m talking Dodd-Franks here.
There are other, more personal lessons to be learned. J.V. lost his way, but he never lost his humanity. He spoke to anyone and everyone, regardless of their station in life. Despite his troubles, he enjoyed himself.
One of my favorite anecdotes involves a train ride J.V. took through Colorado in the 1920s. Perched in an open air observation car, a river on one side and “snow-capped mountains and rocky cliffs” on the other, J.V. exalted, “The valleys are narrow but the streams are full of rushing water. The sun shines brightly.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books: Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.