History
A former American holding company, Chase Manhattan Corporation’s roots were planted during the final days of the 18th century in New York. During this time, after an epidemic of yellow fever the New York state legislature chartered the Manhattan Company to build a water supply system to bring clean water to the state. Because of the surplus of capital, some $2 million, the directors voted to use those funds to open an office of “discount and deposit”. On September 1, 1799, the Bank of the Manhattan Company was founded by Aaron Burr and opened in a house on 40 Wall Street. Over the next few years, after the success of its waterworks, the company sold the waterworks and retained its focus solely on banking. Growth was steady over the years, but its expansion took off after the onset of the 20th century. In 1918, the company acquired its first branch office after a merger with the Bank of the Metropolis. Two years later, it merged with the Merchants’ National Bank of the City of New York and then the International Acceptance Bank, Inc in 1929. This merger noted the banks future in foreign trade financing.
The Chase National Bank was organized September 12, 1877, by John Thompson, who named the bank in honour of the late U.S. Treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase although Chase had no connection with the bank. Chase National’s growth was phenomenal, and by 1921 it had become the second largest national bank in the United States, without any mergers. After that year the bank acquired a number of smaller bank: Metropolitan National Bank (1921), Mechanics and Metals National Bank (1926), Mutual Bank (1927), Garfield National Bank (1929), National Park Bank (1929), Seaboard National Bank and Interstate Trust Company (1930). Howeverf, the most significant of its mergers was the acquisition of the Equitable Trust Company of New York in 1930, the largest stockholder of which was John D. Rockefeller, Jr. This mergr made Chase the largest bank in America and resulted in a proliferation of branches and extensive foreign affiliations.
On March 31, 1955, Chase National Bank (then the nation’s 3rd largest bank) and the Bank of the Manhattan Company (the 15th largest) merged to form The Chase Manhattan Bank. Its reorganization as the Chase Manhattan Corporation in 1969 reflected a general movement in American banking to establish holding companies to own banking operations that were separate from other operations such as finance companies, which were by law excluded from the purview of banking.
In 1996 The Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with the nation’s second largest bank, the New York-based Chemical Banking Corporation, to form what was then the largest bank in the United States. The merged bank kept the name The Chase Manhattan Corporation. Chase Manhattan’s December 2000 merger with investment bank J.P. Morgan created a more diverse financial firm, J.P. Morgan Chase which is now the name the bank currently operates under.

REFERENCES
Davis, L. R., & Wilson, L. (2011). Estimating Jp Morgan Chase's Profits from the Madoff Deposits. Risk Management and Insurance Review, 14(1), 107+. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com