Hiram Northup

Hiram Milton Northup was an American banker and businessman.

Biography

Northup was born on June 4, 1818, in Olean, New York. His father, Andruss Bishop Northrup, was also a banker, who died in 1892. His mother was Martha Northup, who died in 1820. Northup was of English descent.
In 1844, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri. There, he formed a partnership to trade with the Comanche. He later escaped to St. Louis after a mass death.
In St. Louis, he started a Native American trading business, which soon was shipping goods to Kansas City. He traded cloth products with Shawnee, Peoria, Piankeshaw, Pottawattami, Osage, Seneca, Sac and Fox and Cherokee peoples. He made a partnership with Silas Armstrong and Joel Walker of the Wyandot.
After their partnership ended, he began a partnership with Joseph S. Chick in 1844, forming Northup & Chick banking firm. On September 23, 1854, along with other Kansas City settlers, Northup & Chick helped pool US$1000 to start the Kansas City Journal-Post. The bank dissolved in July 1893.

Death and legacy

Northup died on March 22, 1893, aged 74, and is buried at Huron Cemetery. After Northup & Chick dissolved, it later became the NBKC Bank. In 2020, NBKC Bank had 424 employees and $150 million in net income. They originated over 20,000 mortgages with a value of $7.1 billion.