1 Dollar

Fairman, Draper and Underwood were among the most technically accomplished security printers in North America at the time, and the Bank of Montreal was one of their more prestigious colonial clients. The firm — which would soon be absorbed into the newly formed American Bank Note Company in 1858 — worked extensively with Canadian chartered banks during the 1820s and 1830s, when no equivalent engraving capacity existed in British North America itself.

The Bank of Montreal had received its royal charter in 1822, making this a relatively early issue in its institutional history. Chartered bank notes in Lower Canada circulated alongside — and often in competition with — notes from the rival Bank of Upper Canada, with public confidence varying sharply by region and political climate.