Brought face to face with apparent financial disaster, the next step taken to prevent this was the establishment of a bank. Smith told of a "revelation" concerning a bank "which would swallow up all other banks." An application for a charter was made to the Ohio legislature, but it was refused. The law of Ohio at that time provided that "all notes and bills, bonds and other securities [of an unchartered bank] shall be held and taken in all courts as absolutely void." This, however, did not deter a man of Smith's audacity, and soon came the announcement of the organization of the "Kirtland Safety Society Bank," with an alleged capital of $4,000,000. The articles of agreement had been drawn up on November 2, 1836, and Oliver Cowdery had been sent to Philadelphia to get the plates for the notes at the same time that Orson Hyde set out to the state capital to secure a charter. Cowdery took no chances of failure, and he came back not only with a plate, but with $200,000 in printed bills. To avoid the inconvenience of having no charter, the members of the Safety Society met on January 2, 1837, and reorganized under the name of the "Kirtland Society Anti-banking Company," and, in the hope of placing the bills within the law (or at least beyond its reach), the word "Bank" was changed with a stamp so that it read "Anti-BANK-ing Co.," as in the facsimile here presented. [Illustration: Bank-Note 198] W. Harris thus describes the banking scheme:-- "Subscribers for stock were allowed to pay the amount of their subscriptions in town lots at five or six times their real value; others paid in personal property at a high valuation, and some were paid in cash. When the notes were first issued they were current in the vicinity, and Smith took advantage of their credit to pay off with them the debts he and his brethren had contracted in the neighborhood for land, etc. The Eastern creditors, however, refused to take them. This led to the expedient of exchanging them for the notes of other banks. Accordingly, the Elders were sent into the country to barter off Kirtland money, which they did with great zeal, and continued the operation until the notes were not worth twelve and a half cents to the dollar."* * "Mormonism Portrayed," p. 31 Just how much of this currency was issued the records do not show. Hall says that Brigham Young, who had joined the flock at Kirtland, disposed of $10,000 worth of it in the States, and that Smith and other church officers reaped a rich harvest with it in Canada, explaining, "The credit of the bank here was good, even high."* Kidder quotes a gentleman living near Kirtland who said that the cash capital paid in was only about $5000, and that they succeeded in floating from $50,000 to $100,000. Ann Eliza, Brigham's "wife No. 19," says that her father invested everything he had but his house and shop in the bank, and lost it all. * "Abominations of Mormonism Exposed" (1852), pp. 19, 20.