The Chetwynd Chronicles

While searching for kith and kin at genealogybank.com I decided to check up on Mr. Granville Chetwynd-Stapylton yet another time. I was not disappointed. The Press Horticulturalist of Riverside, California, published an article by J. [sic] C. Stapylton, April 22, 1893,The Banks and Orange Marketing in Florida. Stapylton formed the first bank in Leesburg in 1886 and, at the time of this writing, was growing in stature as a banker.

Although his article discusses the financial arrangements made between banks and citrus marketing and shipping in Florida, which might make one’s eyes glaze over, Stapylton, to put it succinctly, really had a way with words like these in the article’s opening paragraph.

The success of a country bank depends primarily, of course, on the strength and stability of the foundation of the natural resources of the territory which it serves. With us in the great lake region of South Florida, the orange is easily king, and he shares his monarchy with his royal consort, the lemon.

After detailing the financial procedures set in place locally he concludes: The activity of the entire population of South Florida during the gathering and shipment of the orange crop, is impressive; and behind this small army of pickers, sorters, sizers, wrappers and packers, behind the procession of heavy wagons loaded to the straining point with orange boxes and wending their way along every country road to a railroad, behind the gold trains whose gold freights bring back to us whatever prosperity we enjoy—behind all these things stand the country banks, directing with skilled and cautious hands the stream of credit of which they are: the fountain head, carrying through with speed, accuracy and precision, the innumerable transactions incident to the complex conditions of modern trade, guarding the people’s savings, and last, but not least, setting a public example of probity that, like Caesar’s wife, should be above suspicion.

What a sentence! Only St. Paul’s writings in the New Testament can trump Stapylton’s. And for the record, “probity” means one of strong moral principles, honest, and decent. That Stapylton was.