The Agricultural Bank located in Marion, Illinois clearly issued its own notes as evidenced by this $2 dollar banknote offered for sale on Ebay in 2013.
One of the bank officers who signed the banknote was Robert M. Hundley. Although the other note signers are not clearly readable, one of the primary signers appears to be named Harding.
The only information located to date on this bank is a single entry found in Milo Erwin’s history of the county published in 1875 stating, “There have been four banks in this county—Agricultural Bank, Bank of Southern Illinois, in 1860, and Menahaway Bank, in 1863; Bolton Bank, in 1858.”
A check of Robert M. Hundley’s 1860 census record reveals that he was a banker in that year, but it does not mention the bank name.
The banknote illustrated in this post is typical of Civil War period art work on bills and undoubtedly dates to the period around 1860. I suspect that this bank would be considered a “wildcat bank”.
Wildcat banking refers to the unusual practices of banks chartered under state law during the periods of non-federally regulated state banking between 1816 and 1863 in the United States, also known as the Free Banking Era. This era, commonly described as an example of free banking, was not a period of true free banking, as banks were free of only federal regulation; banking was regulated by the states. The actual regulation of banking during this period varied from state to state.
(Photo from Ebay and data accumulated from Federal Census Records and Wikipedia; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 06/17/2013)