Union Market National Bank

Bank Information

Episode Type: Suspension → Closure
Bank Type: national
Bank ID: 2108
Charter Number: 2108
Start Date: January 29, 1884
Location: Watertown, Massachusetts (42.371, -71.183)

Metadata

Model: gpt-5-mini
Short Digest: bd94865e

Response Measures

None

Description

Cashier Tilden G. Abbott absconded with large sums (~$31,160), prompting the bank to suspend business (articles state the bank 'will not open' and 'will ... suspend business' and predict liquidation). No run on depositors is described in the articles; suspension appears driven by embezzlement and leads toward liquidation/closure.

Events (2)

1. May 16, 1873 Chartered

Source: historical_nic

2. January 29, 1884 Suspension

Cause: Bank Specific Adverse Info
Cause Details: Cashier absconded with funds (~$31,160); prior suspicious transactions by president and forged check concealed; bank crippled and suspended for examination; liquidation expected.
Newspaper Excerpt: Tilden G. Abbott ... has absconded, taking funds of the bank aggregating as far as known $31,160. The bank will not open its doors to-day
Source: newspapers

Newspaper Articles (3)

1. January 29, 1884 Evening Star Washington, DC

Article from Evening Star, January 29, 1884

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Article Text

Professor Lenz, of Nuremberg, Germany, has received an order to cast a bronze statue of the late President Garfield, which is to be erected In San Francisco. Prof. Klinkerfues, the German astronomer, shot himself in the observatory at Gottingen, Germany, yesterday. The trial of George Alfred Townsend for libel of Joseph Hart, with damages set at $20,000, began in New York yesterday. The will of Dr. John R. Lee, of Hartford, Conn., among other bequests leaves $2,000 to the Hampton (Va.) Normal and Agricultural school. An unknown Hungarian, out of work and starving, committed suicide at West Newton, Pa, Sunday, by jumping in an air-hole in the ice. A man named Webb became involved in a dimculty in Jackson county, Ala., yesterday, with three brothers named Milburn, and he killed two of them and fatally wounded the third. All the compositorsemployed in the Evening News office, Philadelphia, were notified Saturday that their services were no longer required, and their places were soon afterwards supplied by non-union men. The amount of subscriptions received by the Boston Post to be given Lieut. Rhodes. of the cutter Dexter, for gallant conduct in connection with the City of Columbus disaster, is $1,180. Agnes Murphy, of Raymertown, N. Y., died Sunterday morning from poisoning. There are circumstances in the case which point to its being a life insurance murder. Wing Lee, a well-known Louisville Chinaman, was married in that city Monday to Miss Neille Burton, a prepossessing white girl. A MYSTERIOUS MURDER-The mutilated remains of Harvey Slacker, a prominent young man of Elizabeth, Pa., were found yesterday morning near Peter's creek trestle, two miles from Elizabeth. Blood was scattered over the snow for a distance of 100 yards, and there was evidence of a hard struggle. There is no clue to his murderer. ... THE OLD, OLD STORY.-Tilden G. Abbott, for ten years cashier of the Union Market National bank of Watertown, Mass., has absconded, taking funds of the bank aggregating as far as known $31,160. The bank will not open its doors to-day, and should there be a run it may close permanently. Abbott was of pleasing address, a member of the Baptist church, and until within six months ago was treasurer of the Watertown Savings bank. He is about forty years old, and has a wife and four children. It is believed that a woman is with him. A YOUNG WOMAN'S DEATH FROM MALPRACTICEMargaret Sauer, aged 21, died Sunday at the restdence of her married sister, Bertha Hauft, in New York, from the effects of malpractice. Dr. Wm. P; Merxes, who attended her; Mary Bachert, allas Preston, and Jacob Bachert, the brother of the preceding and the alleged lover of the victim, were arrested and held for examination. TWIN BABIES FROZEN TO DEATH.-A dispatch from Liberty Mills, Ind., says: "The twin babies or Isaac and Rebecca Martin were frozen to death Thursday night in their crib, which had been placed in a fireless room. They werethree months old. Martin visited the crib during the night and found one babe dead. The other was suffering severely, and soon died. The clothing was trozen to the bodies of the infants. PART OF THE BUZZARD BAND ARRESTED-Mrs. Abc Buzzard, wife of the notorious outlaw. and three members of the gang, named Hainey, Hornberger and Breneiser, were arrested on Ephrata mountain near Lancaster, Pa., Friday, the men being charged with felonious entry and larceny, and Mrs. Buzzard with receiving stolen goods. The arrest was effected on the information of a Philadelphia detective, who joined the band January 1 and has been traveling with it since. SAD EFFECT OF THE EMMA BOND TRIAL-There is a queer climax to the Emma Bond case. One of the jurors weeps constantly at home, and refuses to be comforted. Another one starts and runs whenever he hears any unusual noise, and another, Boone Isaacs, who was engaged to a young lady, has been jilted, and is now overcome with grief. SOME MODEST REFORMERS.-The second day's session of the New England Free-Thinkers' convention opened at Boston yesterday. A tree-thinkers' association was formed, with by-laws, demanding that churches should not be exempt from taxation; that the jndicial oath should be abolished; that all laws enforcing the observance of the Sabbath and Christian morality should be repealed; that the Bible should be removed from the puolic schools, and that governmental aid should be refused to sectarian schools. WHOLE FAVILY PATIONED wife of

2. January 30, 1884 The Daily Dispatch Richmond, VA

Article from The Daily Dispatch, January 30, 1884

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Article Text

ROBBED BY THE CASHIER. A Bank in Massachusetts RuinedTilden G. Abbott, of the Union Market Bank of Watertown, Absconds. The Boston Journal yesterday tells the story of the ruin and collapse of another national bank as the result of the rascality of one or more of its officers. Condensed, the Journal says as follows: A few weeks ago the Union Market National Bank, of Watertown, was obliged to pass its dividend on account of certain very peculiar transactions by its president, George N. March, who, by the way, was a director of the Pacific Bank when it failed. The nature of these transactions was not fully made public, but March resigned and the matter was compromised. But now the cashier of the institution, Tilden G. Abbott, has gathered up the available cash in the vaults and has absconded. The extent of Abbott's operations is not yet known, but the apparent deficit is $31,160. There is also missing a blank check from the cashier's check-book of which there is no record and the amount that has been negotiated thereon is not known. Abbott was last seen about 2 o'clock on Saturday. He spent most of the day in Boston, but was at his desk at the close of bank hours. He did not appear at his desk this morning and an inquiry was made at his house. The members of his family said he left home on Saturday afternoon, saying that he was going to spend Sunday with his parents at North Reading. THE BANK COMPLETELY STRIPPED. A messenger was sent to Boston, and at the clearing-house he found an irregular casher's check against the bank for $4,960, payment on which was refused. The Fourth National Bank, the Boston agent of the bank. had paid a simitar check for $6,200. Both had been given to brokers' firms on Saturday in payment for negotiable securities purchased by Abbott. It was also found that the absconding eashier had on Thursday last drawn $10,000 from the cash balance kept at the Fourth National by the Union Market Bank and a similar amount on Saturday. giving as a reason that he wanted to butid up the bank's reserve, because he expeeted an immediate visit from the bank examiner. He took with him also $5,000 in cash from the vaults. These were Abbott's recent operations. To what extent he, with or without the cooperation of others. has systematically depleted the bank's resources, cannot yet be stated. The bank. in any event, is crippled, and will to-morrow morning suspend business until a full examination of its affairs can be made. THE ABSCONDER'S HIGH SOCIAL STANDING. The resources of the institution, according to its last statement, amounted to $598,000. Abbott's bond amounts to $15,000. and is considered good. He has been cashier for ten years. and was previously connected with Boston banks. He occupied a high social position, and leaves a wife and four children. He was on terms of closest intimacy with March. the recently-retired president, and both were active members of the same church. It is said that Abbott had been dissipating somewhat in Boston of late. He is not known to have speculated. No one has any idea about the direction in which he has fled. There is little doubt that the bank will go into liquidation, and that in any event its affairs will be wound up.

3. February 1, 1884 Vermont Phœnix Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, Ludlow, VT

Article from Vermont Phœnix, February 1, 1884

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Article Text

# THE NEWS IN BRIEF. -Submarine divers have examined the hull of the wrecked City of Columbus and find a hole three feet square forward, 20 feet from the stem, and several smaller holes forward and aft, also a perpendicular crack near the foremast, while on the bottom were fragments of jagged rock, evidently broken from the larger boulders on which the ship struck. In front of her is a deep furrow which her prow has plowed in the sea bottom as the ship has settled back. The divers believe that the ship is broken in two, and no attempt will be made to raise her. It is still a disputed point as to whether a sunken rock has been found and whether the ship struck outside the buoy as claimed by the captain. A fund is being raised in Boston for the Gay Head Indians who saved 22 lives from the wreck at the imminent risk of their own. The ship City of Macon has taken the place of the wrecked ship. The investigation of the disaster which it was intendel to begin Wednesday has been postponed on account of the illness of Capt. Wright. -Tilden G. Abbott, for 10 years cashier of the Union Market national bank of Watertown, Mass., absconded Monday, with $31,160 in funds and a cashier's check of an unknown amount. Mr. Abbott was at the bank, Saturday, when it closed, but soon after disappeared. His disappearance was not known at the bank until Monday morning, and his family supposed that he had gone to North Reading to visit his parents. He was a prominent church member and Free Mason. The state bank examiner is credited with saying that the wrecking of this bank is the worst case of bank defalcation that has ever occurred in New England. It now turns out that the directors of the bank knew several months ago that Abbott had forged an $800 check on a Watertown firm and turned it in as an asset of the bank when the bank examiner was coming. Abbott was suspended for the time being, but afterward was reinstated. -A fire broke out in the Minnesota state prison at Stillwater at 11:45 Friday night, and in spite of every effort all the buildings were destroyed. The prisoners, including the Younger brothers, were taken out and placed under a strong guard in the yard. When the fire department arrived it was impossible to do any effective work on account of the dense smoke. At 1 o'clock it became evident that the prison was doomed, and Company K of the state militia was called upon to assist in removing the convicts. About 330 in all were shackled together by means of long fine chains and removed to different points in the prison grounds. Soon after this the entire institution was a mass of flames and was totally destroyed. -Another murderous assault, similar to the Maybee and Townsend crimes, was perpetrated on Long Island Thursday night, at East Meadow. Selah Sprague, a well-to-do farmer there, was attacked as he was entering his barn by a slim mulatto who struck him on the head with a fish-plate or railroad frog and left him for dead. The mulatto then went to the house and meeting Mrs. Sprague in the kitchen, aimed a blow at her and demanded her money. She ran screaming from the house and the man escaped. A general alarm was spread and the farmers hitched up their horses and started in all directions to scour the country for the perpetrator. The man was arrested the next morning and locked up. -Two children were burned up in Ishmael Ivick's house in Orangeburg county, S. C., Sunday. The father and mother went away and left them alone in the house. -In Howard county, Ark., two judges of the supreme court were hanged in effigy, Sunday, because they granted an appeal in the cases of three colored men sentenced to be executed for murder. -The Brigham Young academy at Provo City, Utah, a Mormon school with 400 students, was burned Monday night. Loss $30,000. No lives were lost. -On Monday, at Cleveland, Ohio, a four-year old boy set his clothing on fire while poking shavings into the stove, and died in an hour, after great suffering. He was the last of five children, the others dying within a short time of diphtheria. The mother became a raving maniac after his death. -James McBride, an oiler in the Brooklyn bridge engine room, was caught in the fly wheel Monday and his head was completely severed from his body as he was carried and struck the edge of the flooring. -The creditors of Daniel F. Beatty, manufacturer of organs at Washington, N. J., have granted him an extension. His liabilities are about $175,000. -A westward-bound passenger train on the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis road was wrecked Monday by striking a rock which had rolled down on the track. The engineer and firemen were killed. -Reports from different sections of California indicate a bad condition of the crops. This has been the dryest season in seven years. -William H. Craft accomplished at Syracuse, N. Y., Saturday night, the feat of walking 302 miles in 100 hours without a stop. He was in a critical state from exhaustion at the finish. -Two boys, each nineteen years old, were hanged at Mount Vernon, Ind., last Friday for the murder of a lad two years younger, in order to take from him a few dollars which he had earned and saved. They were allowed to make an exhibition of themselves on the gallows, singing and praying as though they had got the start of their less enterprising fellows and were on a short road to glory. -William Combs, a farmer 40 years of age, living near Elgin, Ill., cut his wife's throat last Friday. In her dying agony she wrenched the weapon from him and stabbed him fatally. -Brooklyn had a diamond robbery last Sunday which was a particularly daring piece of business. A jewelry store in Fulton-st. was entered in broad daylight, the safe, which could be easily seen from the street, was pried open and precious stones worth over $4,000 were carried away in safety. -Two "double ripper" coasting sleds, each bearing 13 men and girls, came in collision on a hillside at Irvington-on-Hudson, Saturday evening, while at high speed. Four men and a young lady were carried home insensible. They will be maimed for life and some of them may die. The sleds were smashed to splinters. One person was killed at Tarrytown Monday by running into a wagon while coasting. -Mr. Lavin, a Pittsburg, Pa., jeweler, on opening his store Tuesday morning, discovered a mulatto at work on the safe, who drove him at the muzzle of a pistol into a back room and escaped with $1500 worth of jewelry. -A national agricultural convention is to be held at the Grand Central Hotel, New York, Feb. 6 and 7, under the auspices of the American agricultural association. Discussions will be had upon dairying, cattle breeding and feeding, the tariff, transportation and other subjects of direct interest. Addresses will be delivered and papers read by leading men in agriculture and public affairs from all sections of the country. -A strange and fatal disease is reported to have broken out among the cattle in the western part of Dallas county, Tex. Large numbers have died, the disease failing to yield to treatment. A mass meeting of cattle men was held at Grand Prairie Wednesday to take steps to check its ravages. -President Arthur gave the first state dinner of the season at the White House Wednesday night to the members of the cabinet, their wives and a few other guests. The whole of the main floor of the White House was brilliantly lighted and handsomely decorated with flowers and tropical plants from the conservatory and botanical gardens. Thirty-six covers were laid, and the dinner consisted of 21 courses. -The great strike of Pittsburg window glass blowers has at last ended. The conference committee of the strikers and manufacturers have reached an agreement and the men will return to work after a seven-months rest as soon as the furnaces are heated. While both sides made great concessions, the terms at which work will be resumed favor the workmen. -A war is raging among the oleomargarine dealers which has reduced the price of that precious product to 13 and 15 cents the pound. The war was started by Boston firms