Walla Walla Savings Bank (Walla Walla, WA)

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Walla Walla Savings Bank Closed

WALLA WALLA, Dec. 9-Ata meeting of the directors of the Walls Walla Savings bank this evening it Was decided to go into liquidation, and the doors will not be opened Monday morning. An application for a receiver will be filed in the superior court. The paid up capital is $100,000. No statement of liabilities can be obtained tonight, but President Edmiston states that all depositors will be paid in full. The embarrassment is due to the general stringency and the low price of wheat

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Going Into Liquidation

WALLA WALLA, Wash., Dec. 9.-At a meeting of the directors of the Walla Walla Savings bank this evening it was decided to go into liquidation, and the doors will not be opened Monday morning. An application for a receiver will be filed in the superior court. The paid up capital is $100,000. No statement of liabilites can be obtained tonight, but President Edmiston states all the depositors will be paid in full. The embarrasement is due to the general etringency and low price of wheat.

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CLOSED ITS DOORS

The Walla Walla Savings Bank Goes into Liquidation. WALLA WALLA, Wash., Dec. 9.-At a meeting of the directors of the Walla Walla Savings Bank this evening it was decided to go into liquidation, and the doors will not be opened Monday morning. An application for a receiver will be filed in the Superior Court. The paid up capital is $100,000. No statement of the liabilities can be obtained to-night, but President Edmiston states that all the depositors will be paid in full. The embarrassment is due to the general stringency and low price of wheat.

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THE SECURITY SAVINGS BANK

This Institution and Walla Walla Savinge Bank Will Go Into Liquidation. The officers of the Security Savings bank, of which J. K. Edmiston is president, have decided to liquidate its affairs and terminato its business. Mr. Edmiston is at present in Walla Walla, looking after the interests of the Walla Walla Saving bank, of which institution he is also president, and which will likewise go out of business. Pending his return, the Security bank will temporarily suspend payment and will not open its doors for business. The cashier of the bank states that the deposits are small, not aggregating over $30,000, and that all depositors will be paid in full. The Seattle clearing house offered to furnish the money and liquidate the bank at once, but their offer was declined, the officers preferring to close out the business themselves. The partial failure of the wheat crop in Eastern Washington and the connection of the Security bank with the Walla Walla bank are the reasons given by the officer for winding up the affairs of both institutions.

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ANOTHER SUSPENSION

Walla Walla, Dec. 9.-At a meeting of the directors of the Walla Walla Savings Bank this evening it was decided to go into liquidation, and the doors. will not be opened Monday morning. An application will be made for a receiver. The bank had a paid-up capital of $100,000. President Edmiston states all depositors will be paid in full. The embarrassment is due to the general stringency and the low price of wheat.

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Receiver for Walla Walls Bank

Walla Walla, Dec. 11.-{Special.]-The stockholders of the Walla Walla Savings bank today decided upon Col. Wellington Clark for the appointment of receiver.

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P. B. JOHNSON'S MALICE. Be Inspires If He Does Not Write Falsehoods About Honest Men. WALLA WALLA. Decrease 22, 1893. To THE EDITOR: In a recent issue of the Walla Walls Union Journal its editor, P. B. Johnson, in an open letter to the editor of the POST-INTELLIGENCER, denies that he ever wrote the scurrilous letter that was sent out from here to the Spokane Review, Portland Oregonian and Tacoma Ledger. He not only denies having written the letter, but states: "I do not know who wrote the long letter, etc.," and thus he continues at great length to deny any knowledge of the matter and begs not to be held responsible for the sins of others. By way of reminder it would be well for Mr. Johnson to look back to the columns of his own paper, and there he can find that, not more than a week ago, he admitted the letter to have been written by a man in his employ, but shirked the responsibility on the ground that the letter was not printed in the Union Journal, of which he is the editor. It is immaterial, however, whether Mr. Johnson was or was not the author of that letter, or whether he did or did not furnish the false matter therein contained. This much is certain: he admits the contents thereof to be false, he acknowledges that there was not an atom of truth in any of the statements, and yet he had not the manhood to contradict them in the columns of his own paper. At great length he tells us in his "open letter" to the editor of the POST-INTELLIGENCER that he way and is always ready to criticise men and measures in an open and manly way. I submit that he who is always ready to condemn men and measures that are detrimental to the public good ought to be equally ready and willing to commend men and measures whose acts and aims are beneficial to the public good. Mr. Johnson, who has been identified with that public institution, the state penitentiary, located here in Walla Walla, for quite a number of years, knows perfectly well that the acts of the board of directors of the penitentiary, spoken of in that "long letter," netted the state $3,900 annually. The usual price, with one or two exceptions, paid for wood was $6 per cord, and sometimes over that. The contract let recently by the directors, of which that "long letter" complained so bitterly, is for wood of equal quality at the price of $4.70 per cord. It is equally true that Mr. Johnson, though sick as he claims to have been at the time of the failure of the Walla Walla Savings bank, knew that not a cent of the revolving fund money was deposited in the said bank, and that the running account that the warden kept in that bank amounted to only a few cents over $500. Was it not the proper and manly thing for Mr. Johnson, who claims to be always ready to condemn evil and commend good, to have denied, and immediately so, in the columns of his paper. the false assertions made by several journals that the state treasury would be a heavy loser by the failure of the bank? Was it not incumbent upon him to say: "The Walla Walla Union Journal, of which I am the proprietor, is a public journal, devoted to the public good, and if the public funds were in peril or wrongly applied, the Journal would have said so and cautioned the public of the danger. The Journal, being printed in the same city where the penitentiary is situated, feels it to be primarily its duty as a public journal to condemn all wrong acts therein committed and to commend all good ones." In that event no one would have made the mistake of accrediting Mr. Johnson with having written or instigated to be written that which he declares to be false. Mr. Johnson would then have had no occasion to print an "open letter" in the editorial columns of his own paper addressed to the editor of another public journal. A RESIDENT OF WALLA Walla.

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Statement of Walls Walla Savings Bank WALLA WALLA, Dec. 28.-[Special.]- Receiver Fitzhugh completed a statement of the condition of the suspended Walla Walls savings bank late tonight, as fol. lows: P

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Bank President Bound Over

Walla Valla, Wash., Dee. 26.Judge Upton today fixed the bond of J. K. Edmiston, president of the suspended Walla Walla Savings bank, at $20,000, to appear before the next term of court to answer the charge of T.J. Potter, for receiving deposits when the bank was in a failing condition.

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EDMISTON ARRESTED

The President of a Defunct Bank Placed in Jail. WALLA WALLA, Jan. 2.-Duepty Sheriff Ellingsworth returned to-night from Harrison, Idaho, having in custody J. K. Edmiston, who was arrested there Monday on a charge of embezzling about $30,000 from the defunct Walla Walla Savings Bank, of which he was president. Edmiston states that he had wired his attorney in Seattle of his intention to return to Walla Walla. He was brought here and locked up in jail. To-morrow Fitzhugh will resign as receiver and a new one will be appointed.

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EDMISTON TOOK THE MONEY

Drew Over $41,000 Out of the Walla Walla Bank in One Day. Walla Walla, Jan. 15.-Receiver F. W. Paine of the Walla Walla Savings bank, made a statement this `evening. Concering the overdraft of J.K. Edmiston, which was made the basis of the prosecution against him in the charge of the overdraft, Mr. Paine says: "I find that J. K. Edmiston, on the morning of the 9th of December, started with a balance to his credit of $10,852,29, and at the close of business that night his account was overdrawn $30,569.01; that $14,103.92 of this amount of overdrafts is made up of certificates of deposit, issued to himself, thus increasing the liabilities of the bank to that amount. The remainder, $27,307.38, was his personal checks drawn to pay for good notes which he took out of the bank on that day."

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Edmiston Held for Trial

WALLA WALLA, Jan. 23.-J. X. Edmiston, president of the suspended Walla Walla Savings Banks. was yesterday bound over in $50,000 bonds, charged with embezzlement of $30,000 of the bank's funds.

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Walla Walla Savings Bank Affairs

Walla Walla, Jan. 29.-The stockholders of the Walla Walla Savings bank held a meeting this afternoon, when the affairs of the bank were generally discussed. While no definite action was taken, a majority of the stockholders expressed the belief that a fair settlement would be made with the depositors, but nothing can be definitely settled until Receiver Paine has completed his labors.

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To Heopen Walls Walls Savings Bank. WALLA WALLA, Feb. 13.-(Special.-The stockholders of the suspended Walls Walla Savings Bank are endeavoring to reopen that institution. Several meet. ings of stockholders have been held to formulate plans of settlement with the depositors. Today a committee, consisting of William Stine, George Ludwigs and Al Goldman, was appointed to interview depositors and ascertain what settlement can be made. It is believed by the stockholders that they can liquidate the bank's aflairs, paying 100 cents on the dollar.

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grocers close consideration for the revival meetings. A good many logging camps are starting up in the Gray's Harbor country. The South Bend tannin works are several carloads behind orders with their output. One hundred men are nightly given free lodging in the People's Tabernacle at Spokane. Martin Holman, of Elma, has a contract for furnishing 4,000 piles for shipment to Honolulu. Tacoma will purchase a new 2,000 light dynamo to increase the capacity of the electric light plant. They think nothing on the Salmon river of breaking a path to a dance through three feet of snow. It took six men to hold Jesse Holman, a hackdriver of Colfax, who went violently insane last Saturday. Seventeen feet 81 inches of snow fallen SO far at Monte Cristo, and not a very good winter for snow either. The Northern Pacific's station at Pullman was broken into, but the booty secured did not amount to much. George Williams, a 14-year-old boy from Douglas county, Or., has been committed to the reform school from Colfax. At Fairfield they dry their wheat in a reyolving cylinder 16 feet long, through which steam pipes are conducted. George Parker, suspected of the Pullman hotel murder last October, is still in the Colfax jail and frets at his imprisonment. J. D. McLeod & Co.'s shingle mill at Edmionds cut 3,126,000 shingles in 25 days during January, with a doubleblock Challoner. The grandest ball ever given on the Columbia river is the event with which Cathlamet proposes to celebrate Washington's birthday. A St. Paul syndicate will soon begin active mining operations along the Wenatchee river with new and improved machinery. On Washington's birthday the children of the State School for Defective Youth at Vancouver are to give a pantomime entertainment. A hundred tons of iron ore will be sent by the Tacoma smelting and refining works to Everett, which will enable the Everett smelter to reopen. The news from Riparia is that fruit is uninjured by the frost and that fair wages are being made by washing fine gold from bars in the Snake river. The retrenchment committee of the Tacoma council has outlined a policy for cutting down salaries among municipal employes, amounting to $12,825. The Wallace brothers, of Kalama, have gone to the Fraser river, in British Columbia, with a force of hands and sturgeon gear,and will go to packing there. C. G. Anderson, who formerly operated a shingle mill at Cedarville, has departed for Sweden, leaving creditors who mourn to the extent of about $1,000. There are rumorsof an arrangement under which Edmiston will be discharged and the Walla Walla Savings bank reopened, to the deep disgust of the Statesman. A large flywheel in the Port Town send nail works burst last week, dis abling a considerable amount of machinery and necessitating & shutdown of a week or two. " Dr. Chase, the dentist," exclaims the Cathlamet Gazette, is in town. See his bills!" That must be a new order of dentist whose bills do not attrat attention without contributive aid. It hurts some of the hard-working people of Cathlamet to go to the jail and see the prisoners supplied with a carpet on the floor, a comfortable fire, their beds made up and an air of comfort. About 600 tons of Slocum ore were stored at the Kelso wharf during January. The gross amount of ore mined, from 15 different properties during the month will reach 1,590 tons, worth $225,000. It is reported that $25,000 worth of bonds to build a logging road from Buckley into the logging camps have been taken in the East. Defaulting Banker Hart was one of the projectors of the logging road. Boundary City now has a population of 200 people, principally miners. It is located at the confluence of Pend d'Oreille and Columbia rivers, on unsurveyed government land, and the outlook for activity in the many mines adjacent is good. Among other educational topics asked the Tacoma teachers at their recent examination was, " What caused the panic of 1893?" And yet, on second thought, probably the teachers' stock of ignorance on the subject is not larger than that aired in the columns of that esteemed contemporary, the Congressional Record. One of the most effectual news papers " scoops" which has come to light in modern times was achieved by the Everett Heraid last week. Having been awarded the city printing con-

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New Informations Against Edmisten

WALLA Walla, April 4.-[Special,]-Informations have been filed against J. K. Edmiston in two new cases by the prosecuting attorney. Both charge him with receiving money on deposit when the Walla Walla Savings bank was in a tottering condition. Both informations allege the money was received the day of the suspension, including $150 state money.

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ATTEMPTED SHOOTING President of a Defunct Bank Shot at Five Times. NARROW ESCAPE VERY A Frenzied by the Loss of His Money a Depositor Attempts to Shoot J. K. Edmiston. / Associated Press. Walla Walla, April 23.-Considerable excitement was caused this morning over the attempted shooting of J. K. Edmiston, president of the defunct Walla Walla Savings bank, by H. C. Tobin, one of our most prominent citizens. Saturday evening Edmiston was released from the county jail on giving bond in the sum of $1,500 to appear in superior court next month to answer the charge of receiving money for deposit when he had knowledge the bank was insolvent. This morning, while Edmiston was standing on the street talking with John Thoney, a depositor of the bank, Tobin came up, and drawing a revolver shot at Edmiston, but missed him. Edmiston turned around and ran down the street, followed by Tobin, who fired four more shots, without effect. Several citizens caught Tobin and took the pistol from him, and Edmiston then ran into a residence, and hid himself. Tobin was arrested and taken before a justice of the peace, where he pleaded guiltry to the charge of assault and WES fined $20 and costs. The shooting is the result of the failure of the bank. Tobin was a depositor in the sum of $5,000, and claims that a few days before the bank suspended he demanded his money, but Edmiston put him off for several days. Meantime the bank became insolvent. Ever/since Edmiston was acquitted of the charge of embezzlement by the jury at Pomeroy, public sentiment against him has run high, and many rumors that his life was in jeopardy have been current. Tobin is one of the most prominent business men in the city and lost all he had by the failure of the bank, and this, with other minor troubles weighing up on his mind, it is supposed, produced a sudden impulse and caused his action.

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Cowlitz county's logging camps are employing 730 men. Lewis county prohibitionists meet at Chehalis June 5. Kalama is out of debt and has money in the treasury. Klickitat county has set its prisoners to work on the stone-pile. Kalama claims the largest sturgeon packing-house in the state. A county Sunday-school convention is in progress at North Yakima. The tent caterpillars are appearing in great numbers in Lewis county. A $600 fishwheel was taken out by the Columbia freshet near Goldendale. Elmer Huntley, an Oakesdale farme has just finished seeding 1,400 acres of wheat. A poultry show with very creditable displays has just been concluded at Dayton. The Simpsons are putting in some 350,000 feet of logs a day at their Kamilchie camp. The new coal shaft of the Roslyn mine is said to be the largest in the United States. The White River mill, at Buckley, has just increased its capacity to 140,000 shingles a day. There is a loud demand for a bridge over the Lewis river uniting Clarke and Cowlitz counties. A new impounding ordinance met with such opposition at Centralia that it had to be suspended by the council. The settlers of Quinault, despairing of county aid, will build a road to Humptulips by each giving 10 days' work. The Everett Herald says that work is to be resumed on the whaleback steamer Everett at the barge works there. John Minnick, of Waitsburg, has a farm in Whitman county, from which he has just turned off 100 tons of barley at $20 a ton. Petitions have been presented to the Cowlitz county commissioners asking them to disallow salaries for deputies of any county official. The Whitman county commissioners have extended the time for the collection of delinquent taxes on personal property to October 15. The Everett barge works will resume the manufacture of steel barges about the first of June, and will give employment to a large number of men. " Red" Phillips, a well-known horsetrainer, was kicked in the jaw and seriously injured by a refractory colt at the Spokane race track, Wednesday. D. S. Lambert, the insane religious fanatic, died at Steilacoom. He claimed to have been sanctified through the ministrations of a sect well known in Old Tacoma. George F. Parker is on trial for murder at Colfax at last. He has been as dumb as a clam ever since his arrest last October, and all the evidence against him is circumstantial. The stockholders and depositors of the Walla Walla savings bank are holding meetings to devise ways and means of investigating the bank's affairs. Some $550 has been subscribed. Pooh Bah is equaled, if not excelled, by Thumbville's city marshal. During a temporary interregnum he is acting mayor, chief of both fire and police departments, municipal judge, and superintendent of streets. Isaac Grant of Puyallup, was seriously hurt in a runaway accident last The week

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Fraud in Edmiston's Walla Walia Bank

WALLA WALLA, Aug. 25. - [Special.]- The report of Expert Branch who was employed to examine the books and accounts of the defunct Walla Walla Savings bank, was made public this morning. The report was made to the stockholders who engaged Branch to do the work, and is very lengthy. After blaming the directors of the bank for having failed to carry out the provisions of the articles of incorporation, by reason of failing to hold meetings and failure to examine the report on the condition of the bank each quarter, Expert Branch proceeds at length to review the actions of J. K. Edmiston, president of the bank. Among other things he says: Edmiston had a habit of using the bank's money to dispose of claims which he held for his personal charges for commission or interest, and the bank is now holding such paper as part of its assets, Edmistion having realized cash for such claims. This has been going on for the greater part of the five years of the bank's existence, but more largely in the last six months prior to the suspension of the bank. He then cites several instances where the money of the bank had been appropriated by Edmiston for his private use, and the books "fixed" to cover the appropriation. Another instance of fraud shown is that George L. Fitzhugh, formerly manager of the bank, and Leon Phipps, an employe of the bank, had been allowed to borrow over $4,000 and $9,000, respectively, without giving any security beyond their personal notes. The expert states that there will be over $181,000 of notes held by the bank which are worthless, and accounts amounting to over $9,000 in the same condition, not taking into account the notes of Edmiston to the bank for $10,000 and his overdraft of $30,000.

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THE EDMISTON TRIAL.

Defendant Disclaims Responsibility in the Bank.

SAUNDERS' ENEMIES RUN AWAY.

The Democratic Leaders Do Not Try to Substantiate Accusations—Fire at Walla Walla.

North Yakima, Feb. 13.-Special- The cases, six in number, against JK Edmiston, of Seattle and Walla Walla, for accepting money as president and manager of the Walla Walla Savings bank when he knew that institution was insolvent, have occupied the time of the superior court throughout the day. In addition to the twenty-four witnesses from Walla Walla, about a dozen arrived on the late train last night from Seattle, and the interest displayed is intense. William Stine, Mrs. Whitney, Henry Tobin, H. P. Estes, George W. Bradbury, J. L. Stubblefield, N. S. Gholson, T. S Page, David and H. B. Goodstein and Leon Phipps were witnesses on the stand for the prosecution.

The evidence was mainly directed to showing that Edmiston had received money and sold bills of exchange after telling various persons that the bank could not meet its obligations. Phipps, who was cashier from October until the bank closed its doors, was the star witzess, and he created a sensation when he stated that on the Saturday before the bank closed Edmiston, his brother and Fitzhue, and the witness were closeted together, and Edmiston then said that the bank would have to close on the following Saturday night on account of it being impossible to raise more funds, and that the bank was heavily in debt.

The defense will endeavor to show the utter lack of knowledge on the part of Edmiston that the bank was insolvent or about to become so. His attorneys maintain that the defendant is being made a scapegoat, and that he was approached by certain bank officials prior to and immediately after the closing of the bank and asked to leave the country; that he was not a party to any of the fraudulent transactions, and that he paid $75,000 of the indebtedness of the bank in the two months in which he served as president and manager. They will maintain that during the panic of 1893 the health of Manager Stine gave way; that then Mr. Fitzhue took charge, serving from July to October, and, he also failing to meet the requirements, Mr. Edmiston was called from Seattle. Edmiston, knowing nothing of the stability of the bank's securities and counting on its resources to bring it out all right, was met with a failure of the wheat crop, which rendered securities valueless.

Phipps, while on the stand this afternoon, refused to answer several of the questions put by the defense in cross-examination, on the ground of incriminating himself, and he testified that he had not been promised immunity by the state. One of the attorneys for the defense stated to the Post-Intelligencer correspondent that if Edmiston was guilty, Phipps and Fitzhue were equally so, and that in case of conviction an information would be filed against them and the prosecution pushed.

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Decision Against Walla Walla Bank

WALLA WALLA, Jan. 2.-SpecialJudge Wallace Mount, of the superior court at Sprague, has overruled a motion for & new trial of the case of H. M. Chase VS. receiver and stockholders of the defunct Walla Walla Savings bank, and has given judgment for the plaintiff against the receiver for $11,000, and against the stockholders for $7,000. The case was originally commenced by W. B. Dutro to recover money due him from the bank on a loan.