Mutual Bank

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Mutual Bank

570 Washington Street
Whitman, MA 02382
Phone (781) 447-4488

Deeply Rooted in Our Communities, Firmly Committed to Our Customers:
A Brief History of Mutual Bank

Today's Mutual Bank is built on the heritage and strength of two institutions: Security Federal Savings Bank of Brockton and Mutual Federal Savings Bank of Whitman. Both were founded as mutual institutions, owned by their depositors. And both have grown and prospered for more than a century as part of the history and fabric of Southeastern Massachusetts.

Twenty-nine years after the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth, Myles Standish purchased an area in Southeastern Massachusetts that became known as Bridgewater, containing both the future City of Brockton and the Town of Whitman. The former became the Town of North Bridgewater in 1821, and was renamed Brockton in 1874. The Town of Whitman, originally known as the "Little Comfort" section of Bridgewater, became part of Abington in 1712, and in 1875 became the Town of South Abington. The name was changed to Whitman in 1886.

The area around Brockton and Whitman had become industrialized by the mid to late 1800s, and both towns shared in the area's prosperity, largely based on the shoe and leather products, and related industries. Against this backdrop, small groups of local business people in Brockton and Whitman started the institutions that have today become Mutual Bank.

On November 27, 1877, The Security Savings Fund and Loan Association of Brockton, later called the Security Co-operative Bank and subsequently Security Federal Savings Bank, was founded. Among the bank's original officers were president Baalis Sanford, Jr., a prominent local businessman and member of the Massachusetts Legislature. Others were Vice Presidents Henry H. Packard, Francis B. Washburn, and Otis F. Curtis.

The Whitman Co-operative Bank, later called The Mutual Federal Savings and Loan Association of Whitman, was incorporated on March 6, 1889. Julius C. Gilbert, a local businessman who had interests in shoe manufacturing and various retail enterprises, was among the bank's founders and early presidents. Ten years after its founding, the bank's officers included: A. S. Stetson, president; C. D. Nash, vice president; and George D. Soule, secretary and treasurer.

Mutual Bank's founders and forebears were entrepreneurs who had already succeeded at retail, manufacturing, insurance, and other local businesses. And they were committed to running their banks the same way -- as locally owned businesses with local interests at heart. That simple philosophy endures today.

The histories of these two institutions have followed similar paths, in each case guided chiefly by the welfare of their customers and communities. Both banks were founded to provide a safe haven for the financial assets of ordinary citizens and local businesses of their communities. Both banks weathered the Great Depression of the 1930s, and both converted to federal charters in 1936-37 in order to provide insurance for members' deposits.

In subsequent years, both banks established a number of full-service branch offices in areas that would be convenient for customers and conducive to growth. And each has embraced innovations in financial products, services, and technology consistent with sound banking practice and customer convenience. Their merger in 2006 was the natural culmination of each institution's decades of service to the area.