Anchorage 1910 - 1940 Legends & Legacies

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Hamill, Harry M.

1884-1958 | Banker

Harry Hamill was a respected and influential banker in Anchorage from 1922 until his death in 1958. He worked at the First National Bank of Anchorage (now First National Bank Alaska) for thirty-six years and was vice president of the bank at the time of his death in 1958.

Harry Magee Hamill was born of Irish ancestry on August 21, 1884 in Gardner, Grundy County, Illinois, the son of George H. Hamill and Josephine Mary Magee.1 His father was a carpenter.2

In 1904, Hamill went to Joliet, Illinois at the age of twenty to accept a job as a clerk, a position at which he was still employed in 1909.3 He moved to Portland, Oregon sometime between 1911 and 1915 to work as a clerk and assistant cashier for the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N), a railroad that operated a network of track running east from Portland to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho.4

Hamill sailed from Seattle to Seward in August 1915, to work for the Alaskan Engineering Commission (AEC), the federal agency in charge of construction of the Alaska Railroad.5 Soon afterwards, he left Seward and moved to Anchorage to work as a freight clerk on the Alaska Railroad.6 On March 28, 1917, he was appointed as the commercial freight agent in Anchorage, with responsibilities for the handling of traffic in connection with water transportation.7 In September 1918, he resigned his job to go to “the States” to enlist in the U.S. Army for military service in World War I. Once he arrived in Seattle, he registered for the draft on October 17, giving his temporary residence as the Frye Hotel.8 Less than a month later, on November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany to end the war. There is no record of Hamill having ever served in the military during World War I.

On November 16, 1918, Harry Hamill and Mildred Henthorn were married in Vancouver, Washington. On August 26, 1919, the Hamill’s son, Robert Magee, was born in Seattle.

During World War I work on the Alaska Railroad slowed as some workers went into the military and others moved Outside to work in war related industries. Some accompanied Frederick Mears (the chairman of the AEC and also its chief engineer in charge of construction of the Alaska Railroad) when he resigned in January 1918 to accept a promotion to colonel and command of the 31st Engineer Regiment, which served on the railroad system in France. In the summer of 1918, the Alaska Railroad workforce averaged 2,800 compared with 5,675 in 1917. Women were hired for some jobs, while others went unfilled.9 Sometime after the birth of their son, the Hamill family returned to Anchorage. Harry Hamill resumed his employment with the AEC.

In January 1922, Hamill resigned from the AEC to become the assistant cashier at the newly established First National Bank of Anchorage (now First National Bank Alaska), which opened for business on January 30, 1922.10 He cashed the first check at the opening of the bank. The bank was backed by men associated with the Alaska Railroad. He worked under Winfield Ervin Sr. (1889-1961), the bank’s cashier and one of its founders, who initially capitalized its assets at $55,000.11

Hamill provided teller services in one of the First National Bank's two “cages.” Ervin Sr. occupied the second one and probably used it as an office. They were the bank’s entire staff.12 Located at the corner of Fourth and G Street, it was founded at a time of over expansion in business during the Alaska Railroad construction boom of the early 1920s.

As a federally-chartered national bank, the First National Bank of Anchorage could be designated as an official U.S. Government Depository and it became the bank for the AEC and its employees. It handled all of the local funds of the Alaska Railroad and the U.S. Post Office Department, and those of other federal agencies. Neither of the other two banks, the Bank of Alaska and the Bank of Anchorage, had national status at that time. The First National Bank of Anchorage grew rapidly and by the end of 1924 its assets had increased to $800,000.13 The smallest of the three banks, the Bank of Anchorage, was failing. In March 1925, the First National Bank of Anchorage purchased the assets of its former competitor for $3,000. In 1950, the Bank of Alaska joined the FDIC and became the National Bank of Alaska, to put it into a more competitive position with the First National Bank of Anchorage.14 Hamill remained at the First National Bank of Anchorage for the next thirty-six years and was vice president of the bank at the time of his death in 1958.

Harry McGee Hamill died on August 10, 1958 in Anchorage, Alaska. After his death, Mildred remained in Anchorage until shortly after the 1964 Alaska Earthquake, when she moved to Seattle. In 1968, after becoming ill, she moved to her son Robert Magee Hamill’s home in Texas, where she died on December 27, 1970. Mildred Hamill was cremated and some of her ashes were spread over Mount Susitna or interred with her husband’s remains. Harry and Mildred Hamill are buried in the Elk’s Tract of the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery.15

Click an image to see more

Mildred Hamill holding a portrait of prominent Anchorage artist Sydney Laurence, the only known portrait for which Laurence actually sat. According to Hamill, Laurence asked that she do his portrait and he sat for her every morning for a week. The painting is currently in the collection of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.
Harry Hamill, ca. 1945-1950, while he was still working for the First National Bank of Anchorage.
Mildred Hamill, ca. 1945-1950, one of the few people in Anchorage with formal art training prior to the 1960s.
The Hamill’s first house in Anchorage, around 1920, a log structure.
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Mildred Hamill holding a portrait of prominent Anchorage artist Sydney Laurence, the only known portrait for which Laurence actually sat. According to Hamill, Laurence asked that she do his portrait and he sat for her every morning for a week. The painting is currently in the collection of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.

B1963.11.7, Jim Balog, photographer, Mildred Hamill-Sydney Laurence Memorabilia, Atwood Resource Center, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Anchorage, AK.

Harry Hamill, ca. 1945-1950, while he was still working for the First National Bank of Anchorage.

Courtesy of the Hamill family.

Mildred Hamill, ca. 1945-1950, one of the few people in Anchorage with formal art training prior to the 1960s.

Courtesy of the Hamill family.

The Hamill’s first house in Anchorage, around 1920, a log structure.

Courtesy of the Hamill family.

Endnotes

  1. Draft registration card, Harry Magee Hamill, Local Board No. 1, Anchorage, AK [May 20, 1942], Fourth Draft Registration Cards for Alaska, 1942, Box 4, U.S., Selective Service System (Headquarters for the Territory of Alaska, Juneau), Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group 147, National Archives at St. Louis (St. Louis, MO), National Archives Identifier 4504983, U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed October 12, 2015).
  2. George Hamill, 1900 Illinois Census, Joliet Township, Will County, Illinois, ED 133, page 1A, National Archives Microfilm Publication T623, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Roll 353, 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed October 11, 2015).
  3. Harry Hamill, Joliet, Illinois, City Directory, 1904, 260, U.S., City Directories, 1821-1989 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed August 18, 2015); Harry Hamill, Joliet, Illinois, City Directory, 1908, 347, U.S., City Directories, 1821-1989 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed August 18, 2015); and Harry Hamill, Joliet, Illinois, City Directory, 1909, 211, U.S., City Directories, 1821-1989 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed August 18, 2015).
  4. “History: The Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company,” Pacific Northwest Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, http://www.pnwc-nrhs.org/hs_or_n.html (accessed October 11, 2015).
  5. “Harry Hamill, 73, Succumbs Sunday,” Anchorage Daily Times, August 11, 1958, 1.
  6. “H. Hamill Rites Today,” Anchorage Daily Times, August 12, 1958, 7.
  7. “Commercial Freight Agent,” Alaska Railroad Record, v. 1, no. 21, April 3, 1917, 168.
  8. Draft registration card for Harry Magee Hamill, Seattle, King County, Washington, Local Board for Division No. 10, City of Seattle, October 17, 1918, U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed October 12, 2015).
  9. William H. Wilson, Railroad in the Clouds: The Alaska Railroad in the Age of Steam, 1914-1945 (Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Company, 1977), 75.
  10. Terrence Cole, Banking on Alaska: The Story of the National Bank of Alaska, Volume I: A History of NBA (Anchorage: National Bank of Alaska, 2000), 131.
  11. “First National Bank had Modest Beginnings,” Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 1954, 6.
  12. “Past History of the First National Bank is recalled by Pioneer Staff Member,” Anchorage Daily Times, March 19, 1954, 1-2.
  13. Terrence Cole, Banking on Alaska: The Story of the National Bank of Alaska, Volume I: A History of NBA (Anchorage: National Bank of Alaska, 2000), 133-134; and “First National Bank had Modest Beginnings,” Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 1954, 6.
  14. Terrence Cole, Banking on Alaska: The Story of the National Bank of Alaska, Volume I: A History of NBA (Anchorage: National Bank of Alaska, 2000), 276-280.
  15. Mildred Hamill, U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed October 11, 2015).

Sources

This entry for Harry M. Hamill originally appeared in John Bagoy’s Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1935 (Anchorage: Publications Consultants, 2001), 101-102. See also Harry Hamill file, Bagoy Family Pioneer Files (2004.11), Box 3, Atwood Resource Center, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Anchorage, AK.  Photographs courtesy of the Hamill family.  Note:  edited, revised, and expanded by Walter Van Horn and Bruce Parham, October 7, 2015.

Preferred citation: Walter Van Horn and Bruce Parham, “Hamill, Harry M.,” Cook Inlet Historical Society, Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1940, http://www.alaskahistory.org.

 

Major support for Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1940, provided by: Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Atwood Foundation, Cook Inlet Historical Society, and the Rasmuson Foundation. This educational resource is provided by the Cook Inlet Historical Society, a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt association. Contact us at the Cook Inlet Historical Society, by mail at Cook Inlet Historical Society, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, 625 C Street, Anchorage, AK 99501 or through the Cook Inlet Historical Society website, www.cookinlethistory.org.