Provident Bank 20th Street, Bayonne branch employees: Emeleen Saenz, Michelle Robinson, Heidi William, Alyssa Blanchard, Sha-lynn Andrews and Sofia Estrada celebrate the Provident tradition as Money Bees recalling Provident Bank as the “Old Beehive Bank

The Provident Savings Institution was the first bank in Jersey City and Hudson County and is New Jersey’s oldest mutual savings bank.
Provident formally referred to itself as “The Beehive Bank” and then “The Old Beehive.”

According to historian Barbara Petrick, “A beehive, symbolize[ed] the thrift and industry of many humble workers . . . .” (Petrick 30). In 1843 a local newspaper, the Jersey City Advertiser, described the purpose of the savings bank: “We expect to see deposits made by mechanics, and artisans, laborers, and servants, shopkeepers and apprentices, men and women, boys and girls . . . these will be the proprietors of the beehives” (quoted in Petrick 30). The bank’s earlier association with the local Temperance Society also seems to affirm Gregory’s belief that together the bank and the temperance movement could influence the behavior of the city’s working poor.

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