Manhattan Bank - New York, NY

Bank Information

Episode Type: Suspension → Reopening
Bank Type: state
Start Date: July 17, 1887
Location: New York, New York (40.714, -74.006)

Metadata

Model: gpt-5-mini
Short Digest: 8bf15bb1

Response Measures

None

Description

Article (a fictional/romance piece published 1887-07-17) describes a large robbery at the Manhattan Bank that left coffers almost empty and the bank obliged to avail themselves of the sixty day claim for settlement with depositors. This indicates a temporary suspension/delay in payments tied to the robbery (bank-specific adverse information). The article does not report a depositor run, receivership, permanent closure, or reopening; I classify this as a suspension with likely eventual resumption (no evidence of failure), but reopening is not explicitly documented — selected suspension_reopening as most consistent with a temporary invocation of the 60-day settlement provision. No explicit OCR corrections required.

Events (1)

1. July 17, 1887 Suspension

Cause: Bank Specific Adverse Info
Cause Details: Large robbery at the bank left coffers nearly empty, forcing invocation of the 60-day claim/delay in settlement with depositors.
Newspaper Excerpt: Their coffers were almost empty... In regard to their settlement with depositors they were obliged to avail themselves of the sixty day claim to which the law entitled them;
Source: newspapers

Newspaper Articles (1)

1. July 17, 1887 Fort Worth Daily Gazette Fort Worth, TX

Article from Fort Worth Daily Gazette, July 17, 1887

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Article Text

# THE GREAT BANK ROBBERY. A Romance of the Metropolis Founded Upon Notes From the Diary of Inspector Byrnes. BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE, AUTHOR OF "GARTH," ETC., ETC. Copyrighted, 1887, by O. M. Dunham. All rights reserved. CHAPTER X. More than six additional weeks had gone by, and still not a single arrest had been made in connection with the great Manhattan Bank robbery. The newspapers had grown tired of reporting no progress, and had mostly ceased to refer to the subject. Such of the public as had maintained their interest in the event had fallen into a skeptical and cynical mood. Meanwhile the Manhattan Bank itself had been suffering most serious inconvenience. Their coffers were almost empty, and though but a comparatively small part of the loss was in directly negotiable form, still until some arrangement could be made about the non-negotiable securities they were practically little better off than if the whole had been in currency. In regard to their settlement with depositors they were obliged to avail themselves of the sixty day claim to which the law entitled them; and during this interval they made every effort to secure the passage of a bill through Congress authorizing the issue of duplicates of the stolen bonds. The depositors were impatient and suspicious, and a report, emanating none knew whence, gained currency in some quarters that the bank directors had opened negotiations with the thieves, which negotiations, of course, would result in the loss of from 10 to 50 per cent. of the value of the deposits. The directors, when questioned as to the truth of the rumors, denied them absolutely; but very little is gained by denying anything which the inquiring party has previously made up his mind to believe. Our old friend, Mr. John D. Grady, ever since the occurrence of the robbery, in such embarrassing proximity to his own virtuous abode, had been pursuing the artless routine of his daily affairs with undisturbed equanimity. If once in a while he happened to run across Inspector Byrnes, in the course of his nocturnal peregrinations, he would greet him with friendly words and inquire with kindly interest whether he were not yet prepared to draw the net on the first victim. He was inclined to doubt, he said, whether the robbery could have been committed by an ordinary or professional gang of burglars; for although certain of the indications were such as to suggest such an idea, yet there were others which pointed to a much more elevated and less commonplace direction. In short, Mr. Grady was of opinion-and here he sank his voice to a mysterious whisper-that it might prove worth the Inspector's while to make a quiet but searching investigation into the financial condition of certain of the officers of the bank as they were immediately before and immediately after the burglary. As a result Mr. Grady felt assured the inspector would light upon information that might be of the last importance. "But as to them other poor fellows that you may be have in your eye," he added, with winning frankness, "well, you know, Inspector, I don't pretend for to say that there's not friends of my own among 'em. Bless you, they tell me all the thoughts of their hearts! And what makes me particularly sure that none of them boys had to do with this job, Inspector, is just that, if they had, they'd have come to me with the whole story. But not a word did I ever hear from one of 'em, and you may say what you will-I'll never believe that they know the thing about it!" "Well, you may be right, Grady?" Inspector replied with an air of being impressed by the diamond dealer's statement. "It's mighty little I can find about it, any way. Of course, you understand, as an officer, I'm obliged to keep up appearances; but we can't convict without evidence, and if there's no evidence there'll be no conviction." With this the two gentleman bade each other good night and parted. It was a few days after this conversation that a handsomely dressed lady, with large dark eyes and a pale but beautiful moulded face, crossed the Hudson by the Courtlandt street ferry, and, passing through the waiting-room, where she bought a paper-covered novel, took a seat in the drawing-room car of the Washington express. The chair immediately in front of her being vacant, she placed her traveling bag, gloves and sealskin jacket upon it, and had seated herself for the undisturbed perusal of her book, when, just as the train started, an agreeable-looking gentleman of perhaps thirty-five years of age entered the car and advanced in her direction, noting the numbers of the chairs as he advanced. When he arrived at the chair which held her things upon it he paused and seemed to hesitate while an expression of energetic embarrassment dwelt upon his courteous and good-humored countenance. She looked up with some traces of annoyance; but when she saw how exceedingly unobjectionable her involuntary neighbor seemed to be, her brow cleared and she said politely, "I beg your pardon, is this chair yours?" "It's not a bit of matter," he replied. "I'm very sorry, I was-I was just on my way to the smoking compartment at the other end." "You have just come out of the smoking compartment-it is behind you," she said with a little smile. "No-I insist, please-it is my fault. I should not lay things away whether you sit down or not." "I wish you wouldn't let me trouble you," he returned in a troubled tone as she began to move her jacket, so he took down her valise and hung up her gloves for her on the hook by the window, putting the traveling bag over it. The gloves she put in her pocket. "I really am going to the smoking room," he then said. "I just came to hang up my hat. I hope you'll make yourself comfortable, you know." So saying he exchanged his tall hat for a black silk skull cap, took a cigar and cigarcase in his pocket, and after putting up a stool so that she could put her feet upon it, bowed slightly and retired. He did not reappear till the train was within a few miles of Philadelphia, when he came back and said: "Do you go through to Washington here?" "No; I go through to Washington. Are you going to sit down? You haven't touched your chair since."