Episode Details

Before Ottawa even existed, Bytown was a chaotic money wild west—where Spanish dollars, foreign coins, merchant scrip, and handwritten IOUs ruled the day, and trust was currency itself. With no official bank for 16 years, merchants and banks sent agents to handle trade, issuing unbacked notes that fueled both commerce and fraud. As the Rideau Canal boomed, so did the demand for banking, but services stayed basic—until 1842, when the Bank of Montreal opened its first branch, run by James Stevenson Jr., who literally slept with cash under his bed to fend off thieves and lumberjacks demanding cash at midnight.

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