On reaching his eighteenth year it was decided that he should enter on a commercial life, and a year or two were spent in stores in Utica and New Hartford, N. Y., leaving the latter place in October, 1826, to take a position in the Bank of Geneva, Ontario county, N. Y., of which the Kev. H. Dwight was president. With this commenced Mr. Handy's long banking career. Five years were spent in this bank and then he accepted an invitation to remove to Buffalo, for the purpose of assisting in the organization of the Bank of Buffalo, of which he was made teller, and remained one year in that position. In March, 1832, the young banker married Miss Harriet N. Hall, of Geneva, and with his bride set out on the wedding tour, which was also one of business, to Cleveland. Under other circumstances the journey would scarcely be deemed a pleasant one. It was in early Spring, and the weather was still inclement. The roads were bad, and the lumbering stage floundered heavily through mud, and amid obstructions that made the way one of discomfort, not unmixed with peril, for six weary days, between Geneva and Cleveland. But in addition to the fact that it was a bridal tour, the young couple were cheered by the prospect before them. The charter of the old Commercial Bank of Lake Erie, established in 1816, and which had gone under, had been purchased by the Hon. George Bancroft and his family in Massachusetts, and it was designed to resuscitate it under better auspices. Mr. Handy had been invited to become the cashier, and in pursuance of his acceptance of the invitation, was, with his bride, on his way to Cleveland. The bank was organized on his arrival and commenced business on the lot now occupied by the Merchants National Bank, at the corner of Superior and Bank streets, the bank lot running back to the present site of the Herald building. Leonard Case, the president of the old Bank of Lake Erie, was president of the resuscitated bank, with T. P. Handy as cashier. It did a thriving business until 1842, when the term of its charter expired, and the Legislature refused to renew it, compelling the bank to go into liquidation. When the great crash of 1837 occurred, the bank had been compelled to take real estate in settlement of the liabilities of its involved customers, and thus the corporation became one of the greatest landholders of the city. Had the property been retained by the bank owners, it would by this time have been worth to them many millions of dollars.