"Our city could support an additional  mutual savings bank to aid her merchants  and homeowners." So reasoned a group of prominent  Portsmouth citizens who were granted a  charter to organize the Piscataqua Savings  Bank on July 19, 1877. This group  elected its Board of Trustees in January  1878, and the Bank opened for business  on April 2, 1878. Governor Ichabod Goodwin  served as Piscataqua's first president, a position  he held until his death in 1882. Ichabod Goodwin, who served as New Hampshire's  first war governor during the Civil War, was keenly  interested in shipping, railroad transportation, and  banking. His expertise in legal matters, finance and  management greatly benefited this new banking  venture. In its first published statement in 1879,  Piscataqua Savings Bank reported assets of  $62,518.24 - an impressive figure for the time. On opening day in 1878, the Bank's entire operation  consisted of a single teller's window loaned to it by  the First National Bank of Portsmouth without "cost  or rent." To modern competitive thinking, this  cooperation might seem odd, but at that time, national banks were not in the savings business, and savings banks did not offer checking accounts.  By 1924, Piscataqua had outgrown these shared facilities, and found a larger space just a few doors away on Pleasant Street which is still its home. Today, Piscataqua Savings Bank is the only state-chartered mutual savings bank in the Seacoast, and one of only a handful remaining in New Hampshire.