BRANCHES.Deposits for the month.Drafts for the month.Total amount of Deposits.Total amount of Drafts. Balance due Depositors.
Atlanta, Georgia$9,419 68$11,242 30$245,200 27$223,020 17$22,180 10
Augusta, Georgia10,771 999,217 94367,653 16284,406 1483,247 02
Baltimore, Maryland29,755 5218,644 571,278,042 32996,371 98281,670 34
Beaufort, South Carolina189,600 74184,924 402,993,873 302,944,441 8849,431 42
Charleston, South Carolina67,668 8384,464 533,100,641 652,795,176 24305,465 41
Columbus, Mississippi2,426 154,364 34132,036 46121,776 6710,259 79
Columbia, Tennessee2,552 552,086 0534,088 9715,738 7618,350 21
Huntsville, Alabama7,343 5010,127 61416,617 72364,382 5152,235 21
Jacksonville, Florida67,292 0957,307 543,312,424 553,234,445 7277,978 83
Lexington, Kentucky14,383 8511,221 13238,680 22188,308 7650,371 46
Little Rock, Arkansas7,871 279,506 37172,392 10154,914 4217,477 68
Louisville, Kentucky18,311 0117,535 741,057,587 71914,504 61143,083 10
Lynchburg, Virginia3,104 481,242 5636,880 9818,354 8718,526 11
Macon, Georgia6,808 987,061 52197,050 01156,308 7540,741 26
Memphis, Tennessee20,045 4027,197 06970,096 09840,218 91129,877 18
Mobile, Alabama11,136 0518,645 621,039,097 05933,424 30105,672 75
Montgomery, Alabama8,522 908,679 60238,106 08213,861 7124,244 37
Natchez, Mississippi25,548 5315,005 17649,256 70612,985 7436,270 96
Nashville, Tennessee15,731 4617,098 58739,691 88625,166 40114,525 48
New Berne, North Carolina38,113 8337,775 731,057,688 321,001,645 7456,042 58
New Orleans, Louisiana193,145 48207,878 532,393,584 082,171,056 95222,527 13
New York, New York133,209 5874,461 611,673,249 361,227,449 57445,799 79
Norfolk, Virginia16,771 8817,757 381,048,762 05916,047 59132,714 46
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania11,451 129,887 49357,924 89278,641 1079,283 79
Raleigh, North Carolina5,663 284,660 18231,685 82202,032 4429,653 38
Richmond, Virginia64,112 5153,900 721,082,152 71912,933 45169,219 26
Savannah, Georgia30,951 2327,066 331,031,173 38893,321 30137,852 02
Shreveport, Louisiana20,688 7221,105 59299,428 39264,707 7834,720 61
St. Louis, Missouri26,323 9320,599 02615,876 74526,490 8689,385 88
Tallahassee, Florida4,589 454,526 75361,614 57329,618 3331,996 24
Vicksburg, Mississippi61,691 7360,068 282,962,235 582,823,700 87138,534 71
Washington, Dist. Colum'a323,555 79296,321 267,438,918 176,406,092 391,032,825 78
Wilmington, N'th Carolina10,714 1012,632 65457,360 75407,512 5149,848 24
Alexandria, Virginia1,929 91685 8014,091 771,626 3512,465 42
$1,461,207 52$1,364,899 95$38,245,163 80$34,000,685 77$4,244,478 03

Total amount of deposits for the month$1,461,207 56
Total amount of drafts for the month1,364,899 95
——————
Gain for the month96,307 61
===========
Total amount of deposits$38,245,163 80
Total amount of drafts34,000,685,77
——————
Total amount due depositors$4,244,478 03
===========

Total amount of deposits for the month$1,461,207 56
Total amount of drafts for the month1,364,899 95
——————
Gain for the month96,307 61
===========
Total amount of deposits$38,245,163 80
Total amount of drafts34,000,685,77
——————
Total amount due depositors$4,244,478 03
===========

This first experiment of the new citizen in saving his funds was working admirably. Each report was more cheering than the preceding one. The deposits were generally made by day laborers, house servants, farmers, mechanics, and washerwomen. Two facts were established, viz.: that the Negroes of the South were working; and that they were saving their earnings. Northern as well as Southern whites were agreeably surprised.

But bad management doomed the institution to irreparable ruin. The charter was violated in the establishment of branch banks; "persons who were never held in bondage and their descendants" were allowed to deposit funds in the bank; money was loaned upon valueless securities and meaningless collaterals, and in the fall of 1873, having been kept open for a long time on money borrowed on collateral securities belonging to its customers, the bank failed!

During the brief period of its existence about $57,000,000 had been deposited. The liabilities of the institution at the time of the failure, as corrected to date, were $3,037,483, of which $73,774.34 were special deposits and preferred claims. The number of open accounts at the time of the failure were 62,000. The nominal assets at the time of the failure were $2,693,093.20. And in the almost interminable list of over-drafts amounting to $55,567.63, there appeared but one solitary surety!

On the 20th of June, 1874, Congress passed an act permitting the very men who had destroyed the bank to nominate three Commissioners, who, upon the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, should wind up the affairs of this insolvent institution. Section 7 of the Act reads as follows:

"Sec. 7. That whenever it shall be deemed advisable by the trustees of said corporation to close up its entire business, then they shall select three competent men, not connected with the previous management of the institution and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, to be known and styled commissioners, whose duty it shall be to take charge of all the property and effects of said Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, close up the principal and subordinate branches, collect from the branches all the deposits they have on hand, and proceed to collect all sums due said company, and dispose of all the property owned by said company, as speedily as the interests of the corporation require, and to distribute the proceeds among the creditors pro rata, according to their respective amounts; they shall make a pro rata dividend whenever they have funds enough to pay twenty per centum of the claims of depositors. Said commissioners, before they proceed to act, shall execute a joint bond to the United States, with good sureties, in the penal sum of one hundred thousand dollars, conditioned for the faithful discharge of their duties as commissioners aforesaid, and shall take an oath to faithfully and honestly perform their duties as such, which bonds shall be executed in presence of the Secretary of the Treasury, be approved by him, and by him safely kept; and whenever said trustees shall file with the Secretary of the Treasury a certified copy of the order appointing said commissioners, and they shall have executed the bonds and taken the oath aforesaid, then said commissioners shall be invested with the legal title to all of said property of said company, for the purposes of this act, and shall have full power and authority to sell the same, and make deeds of conveyance to any and all of the real estate sold by them to the purchasers. Said commissioners may employ such agents as are necessary to assist them in closing up said company, and pay them a reasonable compensation for their services out of the funds of said company; and the said commissioners shall retain out of said funds a reasonable compensation for their trouble, to be fixed by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency, and not exceeding three thousand dollars each per annum. Said commissioners shall deposit all sums collected by them in the Treasury of the United States until they make a pro rata distribution of the same."

There are several legal questions that history would like to ask. 1. Did not the trustees of the Freedman's Savings Bank and Trust Company violate their charter in establishing branch banks? 2. Were not the trustees personally liable for receiving deposits from persons who were neither "heretofore held in slavery" nor the descendants of such persons? 3. Were not persons "heretofore held in slavery" and "their descendants" preferred creditors? 4. Had Congress the authority to go outside of the Federal bankruptcy laws and create such special machinery for the settlement of a collapsed bank? This matter may come before Congress in a new shape some time in the future.

The three commissioners, at a salary of $3,000 per annum, were charged with the settlement of the affairs of the bank. They were Jno. A. J. Creswell, Robert Purvis, and R. H. T. Leipold. Mr. Creswell was retained by the United States before the Alabama Claims Commission at a salary of $10,000 per annum; while Mr. Leipold was a lawyer with considerable practice. But neither one of these gentlemen ever entered a court on behalf of the company. In a little more than five years they used up out of the assets of the company, $40,000 for their salaries; paid for salaries to agents, $64,000, and $31,000 for attorneys' fees, aggregating $135,000—nearly one half of the amount distributed among depositors for the same length of time.