Article Text
RUN ON SAVINGS BANK. The enforcement of the bylaws of the Savings Bank of Utica, which provide that the bank shall not receive deposits to exceed $3,000 from any one patron, and but one person of the same family shall have an account to exceed $1,000. followed one of the most exciting incidents in the history of banking in Central New-York. It was early in 1872. At that time the business of the savings bank was trans acted in a building at the corner of Genesee and Lafayette sts. The People's Safe Deposit and Savings Institution, which had a branch in Utica, and which absorbed the National Savings Bank of the city, failed. The depositors lost heavily. and as they were unacquainted with the respective methods of the People's Savings Bank and the Savings Bank of Utica a feeling of insecurity manifested itself among the depositors of the latter bank. An eccentric individual who believed in dreams and visions contributed the spark which resulted in an actual panic in December, 1872. This man was warned in a dream, he claimed, that the Savings Bank of Utica was about to fall, and he felt called upon to tell a few friends so that they might withdraw their deposits. These told others, and a serious run was the result. On Saturday, December 21, thirty-four accounts were closed. On Monday afternoon more depositors were on hand to draw their money than the officers of the bank could promptly attend to. and the bank was finally closed at 7 o'clock in the evening without materially lessening the crowd. The people were told that if they would come at 9 o'clock the next morning they would get their money. The run continued until Saturday noon, when the officers succeeded in keeping the bank clear of a crowd, but the drafts upon the bank caused by the fright continued until January 10. 1373. During the run 872 accounts were closed and $468, 405 was with= drawn, but at the end of the run the bank had in its vaults about $500,000 in currency for payment to depositors if the run had continued. It was found their that those who had been so eager to withdraw deposits had been those with large accounts, and who were, as a rule, able to care for their owa property. After much consideration the trustees concluded that the receipt of funds from business men, wealthy persons or others who were able to invest and care for their own property, or able to hire clerks to do it for them, was unjust to those to who had neither the experience nor the ability the invest and preserve their savings. It was for benefit of the latter class, the trustees argued. that the savings bank was organized, and it was deter to mined then to make certain discriminations and refuse to receive again funds withdrawn during the run in cases where the depositor was a person of means. This rule is still in force. The first clerk of the Savings Bank of Utica was his Stalham Williams, and it is said that near desk was a scale of feet and inches, and that pros pective depositors had to be measured for the pur pose of identification, and that descriptions of their in physical peculiarities were relentlessly entered a memorandum book.
