Freedman's Savings Bank - Washington, DC

Bank Information

Episode Type: Suspension → Closure
Bank Type: private
Start Date: January 1, 1883*
Location: Washington, District of Columbia (38.895, -77.036)

Metadata

Model: gpt-5-mini
Short Digest: f36cb597

Response Measures

None

Description

The article (1886) discusses the long settlement/winding up of the Freedman's Savings Bank, commissioners/Comptroller handling claims, and barred claims under the 1883 act. No contemporaneous depositor run is described; the institution is being wound up by government-appointed commissioners/Comptroller, i.e., closed. The 1883 reopening referenced appears to be a limited reopening for claims, not a full resumption of banking. Dates of original suspension/failure are not stated in the article, so I did not invent a precise failure date.

Events (2)

1. January 1, 1883* Other

Newspaper Excerpt: In 1883, at the expiration of this limitation, the doors were reopened under certain restrictions. The last report of the commissioner shows that the receipts during the year were $9,379.08, and the disbursements $9,001 ... For barred claims under the act of 1883, $3,931.05 ... All claims not presented within six months after its passage, and all dividends not called for within two years, were barred, and their amounts were to go to the benefits of other depositors.
Source: newspapers

2. * Suspension

Cause: Government Action
Cause Details: Affairs being settled by congressional/state action: commissioners and later the Comptroller of the Currency appointed to wind up the bank's affairs; legal acts (1881 act) affected claims and settlement procedures.
Newspaper Excerpt: The act of February 21, 1881, repealed the law under which three commissioners were appointed to settle the affairs of the Freedman's Savings Bank, and made the Comptroller of the Currency a single commissioner...
Source: newspapers

Newspaper Articles (1)

1. March 4, 1886 The Abilene Reflector Abilene, KS

Article from The Abilene Reflector, March 4, 1886

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Article Text

THAT "SAVINGS" BANK. How the Republicans Robbed the Colored People-Present, Condition of Their "Institution." The act of February 21, 1881, repealed the law under which three commissioners were appointed to settle the affairs of the Freedman's Savings Bank, and made the Comptroller of the Currency a single commissioner, with a salary of one thousand dollars a year, in addition to his regular pay, for performing that service. Eleven years have now been consumed in that business. The whole cost of this protracted "settlement" has fallen upon the assets of the poor depositors whose hard earnings we stolen by a ring of Republican thieves. By the act above cited all claims not presented within six months after its passage, and all dividends not called for within two years, were barred, and their amounts were to go to the benefits of other depositors. In 1883, at the expiration of this limitation, the doors were reopened under certain restrictions. The last report of the commissioner shows that the receipts during the year were $9,379.08, and the disbursements $9,001, exclusive of $1,500 deposited as security for costs in causes before the Supreme Court of the United States. Of this latter sum there was paid for dividends $1,405.19, and for barred claims under the act of 1883, $3,931.05, or a total of $5,336.24. The remainder of $3,664.76 was paid for salaries, attorneys' fees, commissions and a multitude of little expenses. That is to say, more than a third of the whole disbursements went into the maws of leeches that are sucking the few remaining drops of blood in this shameful concern. The record is revolting, but it is consistent with the whole legislation on the subject. After the ignorant depositors had been robbed by Republican laws, which took away their original security, Congress imposed on them three commissioners with $3,000 a year each, and a costly machinery of attorneys, clerks and the like, whereby a large portion of the assets were eaten up during seven years of this scandalous burden. When public opinion revolted at that outrage, then the law was changed to the present form, which. on a most limited scale, continues the imposition by like methods. And it is coolly proposed by the commissioner that Congress shall make good the stolen deficiency by an appropriation of the people's money. This recommendation is made after Republican Administrations allowed the thieves to escape without an attempt at punishment, and, indeed, elevated some of them to prominent places in the Government. Thousands of these deluded colored people either died without having received a dividend or disappeared without leaving a trace behind them. It is high time the business was wound up, and a clerk of one of the departments should be assigned to that small task without any compensation or charge against the little fund that still remains to be distributed. And Congress should at once repeal the act allowing theComptroller of the Currency an additional thousand to his salary for signing his name at the expense of these victims of rascality.-N. Y. Sun.