The Green B 3g Volume itx'ii if June, 1910
Number (3
The Oldest Law Publishing House in the United States WHAT is without doubt the oldest law publishing business in the United States was established when. in ISO-l, David Banks, a regular practi tioner in the courts of New York State, acted on the advice of prominent Judges and founded a distinctively American house for the manufacture and sale of law books. Before that time, law books were scarce and expensive. Only the most prosperous lawyers could afford anything like a respectable working library. Books had been imported, or
printed here and there in small quan tities by various firms by ofiicial order or by popular subscription, but this state of things was not satisfactory to the profession. It was at the sugges
tion of the Judges of the Old Court of
being known as Gould & Banks. After doing business several years under that name, they formed the firm of Banks.
Gould & Co., in New York, and Gould, Banks & Co., in Albany, N. Y. Mr. Banks, the founder of the house,
was a man of strong and attractive personality, an uncompromising "hard shell Democrat," who possessed the friendship of eminent men of his time and was often urged to accept nomina tions for public ofl‘ice, never caring to accept any, however, except that of Alderman. ‘Whenever he ran for this ofiice he was elected, even the Vhigs voting for him, and he served as Presi
dent of the Board when that signified a far greater honor than it would now. They presented him with a handsome silver pitcher when President of the
Chancery and of the Court of Error that Mr. Banks turned aside from the prac~ tice of law to take up a business which in course of time reached unprecedented proportions, and to which he devoted himself with great assiduity. The beginning was a modest one, in a shop on the corner of Broad and Wall .streets in New York City, where the Drexel Building and offices of J. P. Morgan & Co. are now located, another
sturdy fighter David Banks, who crossed the Delaware with George Washington and fought with him in all the battles of the Revolution, the second David Banks showed similar ardor and energy
shop being opened about the same time
in his intense devotion to his business,
in Albany.
which was soon printing more law books than any other concern in the world.
At that time, strange though
it seem, Wall street was an uptown resi dential thoroughfare. Mr. Banks took William Gould in partnership, the firm
Board of Aldermen. for opening Chapel street, now West Broadway. He lived to be eighty-five years old, retaining the use of his mental faculties unim
paired to the last.
The son of that
After twenty-five years the building on Wall street was found too small. and
