Provident Institution for Savings in the town of Boston, Massachusetts," was incorporated December 13, 1816, and the Savings Bank of Baltimore, Maryland, in December, 1818.

The first meeting in New York for the purpose of establishing a savings bank was held in the assembly room of the City Hotel, New York City, on Friday evening, November 29, 1816. The organization of the institution then initiated was due to the efforts of Thomas Eddy, who had been for many years a correspondent of Mr. Patrick Colquhoun, a magistrate of London, and conected with many of the benevolent institutions of that city. Mr. Colquhoun advised Mr. Eddy, April 19, 1816, of the savings institutions then existing and being organized in Great Britan and Ireland, and inclosed him "the plan of an institution." To this direct suggestion Mr. Eddy's efforts are, without doubt, to be ascribed. From the report of the meeting given in the Evening Post of the Monday following, December 2, it appears that Mr. Eddy was called to the chair, and Mr. J. H. Coggeshall was appointed secretary. After discussion of the subject, it was "Resolved, that it is expedient to establish a savings bank for the city of New York." Among the directors appointed were De Witt Clinton, Henry Rutgers (who founded and gave his name to Rutgers College), Duncan P. Campbell, Rensselaer Havens, Richard Varick, Thomas Eddy, Peter A. Jay, and Gilbert Aspinwall. On the 10th of December following, several committees were appointed, one to secure a situation for the bank, another to apply to the legislature for an act of incorporation (Peter A. Jay, chairman), and another to draft an address to the public (De Witt Clinton, chairman). On the Tuesday following, December 17, the following officers were elected: William Bayard, President; Noah Brown, First VicePresident; Thomas R. Smith, Second Vice-President; Thomas C. Taylor, Third Vice-President; Thomas Eddy, Jr., Cashier. From the last day of the year 1816, when a meeting of the directors was held, nothing further seems to have been done in the way of conducting business. Mr. Eddy states why this is so in a letter to Mr. Colquhoun, dated "New York, 4th mo., 9th, 1817." Speaking of the savings banks in England, he says: "A plan was formed, and a number of our most respectable citizens agreed to undertake the management of it; but we found that we could not go into operation without an act of incorporation, for which we made an application

to the legislature, and the result is not yet known." The records of the legislature show that on February 3, 1817, the memorial of Robert Browne and others, of New York City, was presented to the legislature: the memorial declaring "Robert Browne, and others, inhabitants of the city of New York, have formed an establishment in said city for the purpose of receiving on deposit such sums of money from persons belonging to the laboring classes of the community as they are able to save from their earnings, and to allow them an interest thereon." And the memorial further prays the legislature to grant them an act of incorporation as an association to be known as "The Savings Bank of the City of New York." This memorial was read and referred to a select committee, consisting of Mr. Russell, Mr. Sharpe, and Mr. Emmott. On the 11th of March following, this committee put forth the opinion: "However desirable it may be to encourage the poorer class of the community to save their hard earnings and to produce habits of industry and economy by holding out motives of interest to them to do so, still the committee are not convinced that, under the present state of society in this country, an institution like this, which may be beneficial under other circumstances and in older countries, can be put into operation with advantage." And then, having delivered themselves of this bit of conservative wisdom, the committee further gravely declare "The expense necessarily attendant in such an establishment will lessen, if not defeat, the benevolent views of the petitioners." Still the committee magnanimously add, "We are unwilling to preclude, by any opinion of ours, the subject from coming in the usual manner before the house, and therefore we are induced to ask for leave to report by bill."

The house adopted the report of the committee, and granted Mr. Russell leave to bring in his bill, which was entitled "An act to incorporate the Savings Bank of the City of New York," which was read twice and sent to the committee of the whole for a third reading, the petitioners having leave to "print the usual number of copies of the said bill and the report thereon, for the use of the legislature." Two weeks later, Tuesday, March 25, 1817, the bill was reached in committee of the whole, and the Monday following, the 31st, desig• Knapp's Life of Eddy, 266.

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nated as the day for considering it. The legislators of those days understood the arts of procrastination as fully as they are understood now; and, instead of ordering the bill to a third reading and putting it on its passage, the very unusual course in committee of the whole was resorted to, of referring the measure to a select committee. This committee, consisting of Messrs. Pendleton, Russell and Williams, reported the bill on the 2d of April following, changing the title from An act to incorporate the Savings Bank of the City of New York," to "An act to incorporate an association by the name of The Savings Corporation of the City of New York." This bill was again referred to a committee of the whole house. There is no further legislative record of the bill during that session. The reason why the title of the bill was altered from "Savings Bank" to "Savings Corporation" does not appear. There existed at that time a deepseated hostility to all "banks," as has been stated in the preceding article treating of banks of deposit and discount. It is possible, also, that the legislature did not care to give the name "Bank" to a mere institution of deposit. It should be stated in this connection that, on the 10th of March, the petition of M. Willett and many others, praying to be incorporated as a "New York Interest Bank" -having in view the general purposes of a savings bank — was referred to a select committee, and three days later sent to the committee of the whole, which seems to have as effectually strangled that bill as the other. At least it was not heard from again in that legislature.

The first bill for establishing a savings bank in New York City did not pass the legislature and receive the necessary approval of the Council of Revision until March 26, 1819, three years later.

It would seem, at the outset, that the parties whose efforts had been directed toward securing a charter for a savings bank were measurably discouraged. After the reported commitment of the measure and changing the name in committee of the whole the bill had failed. A change of method seems to have been resolved upon; and instead of a measure for incorporating a savings bank, the projectors determined to nominally change the object. Instead of a bill for a savings institution, they endeavored to secure the same

'Keyes' Hist, of Savings Banks, 318.

object under a different name; they applied for an act of incorporation for the relief and permanent benefit of the working classes, and it proved the entering wedge for a savings bank. But this was the outcome of many developing attempts. It was at the New York Hospital, on Friday the 16th December, 1817, that a number of gentlemen met to consider the subject of pauperism. General Matthew Clarkson was appointed chairman, and Divie Bethune secretary. It was then and there "Resolved, that the citizens present, with those who may hereafter unite in the measure, be constituted a Society for the Prevention of Pauperism." It was also resolved to appoint a committee to prepare a constitution and report suggestions for the general management of the society. A committee of eight was appointed, five of whom appeared as directors in the previously projected savings bank. The committee consisted of John Griscom, Brockholst Livingston, Garrett N. Bleecker, Thomas Eddy, James Eastburn, Rev. Cave Jones, Zachariah Lewis and Divie Bethune. February 6, 1818, a meeting of the society was held, at which the committee's report was presented; among various recommendations by the committee the first proposition is the estab lishment of savings banks or benefit societies, life insurance, etc. that meeting a motion was made by Mr. John Griscom, who was a philanthropic gentleman, much interested in educational and scientific objects, that a savings bank be organized, which motion was adopted. Subsequent meetings continued to be held, and soon after the name of the Rev. Dr. John M. Mason appears as among its promoters. It was, however, too late to accomplish anything with the legislature at that time. In this connection it may be stated that the project of M. Willett and others for an "Interest Bank," hereinbefore mentioned, and which had failed in the legislature the preceding year, was renewed in the legislature of 1818, but failed in the Senate by a vote of fifteen to seven. The scheme seems to have been of a business rather than a philanthropic character.

The conviction that an institution for savings was a desirable and

It is interesting to note that out of this "Society for the prevention of Pauperism," and especially owing to the efforts of the same John Griscom, the "Society for the Care of Juvenile Delinquents or House of Refuge" came into existence, being the first organization of its kind in the world. Ch. 126, Laws

of 1824.

sage

even necessary one was forcing itself upon the public mind; and no one was quicker in catching its spirit than the far-seeing De Witt Clinton, who was elected Governor by an almost unanimous vote in the fall of 1817. In his message to the legislature Governor Clinton commented at some length on the evils arising from poverty and idleness. With remarkable prescience he saw the difficulties in the path of the laboring classes, while yet he regarded with no leniency the evils arising from inconsiderate alms-giving. A portion of the mesis as follows: "While we must consider as worthy of all praise and patronage religious and moral societies, Sunday, free and charity schools, houses of industry, orphan asylums and savings banks . . we are equally bound to discourage those institutions which furnish the ailment of mendicity by removing the incentives to labor, and administering to the blandishments of sensuality." In those days. the legislature sent a formal reply to the Governor's message, a practice borrowed from colonial precedent and not yet become obsolete; and in their reply the Assembly declare they shall consider as highly deserving public patronage "all such institutions as your Excellency has enumerated which are so obviously calculated to alleviate the evils of paupersim by inspiring industry, dispensing employment and inculcating economy."

The year 1819 will be ever memorable in the annals of New York, as the year when the first savings bank was chartered by the legislature. From the Assembly journal it appears that before the legislature had been more than two weeks in session on the 19th of January- the memorial of M. Clarkson, in behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, was received, praying for the incorporation of a savings bank in New York City. On the 13th of February the petition was favorably reported upon and leave given to bring in such a bill. On Saturday, February 27, the measure was discussed in the committee of the whole, and the discussion was continued on the Monday following, March 1, when the bill passed the lower house. The bill was first considered in the Senate on Friday, March 5, and the first enacting clause being amended "William Bayard, John Murray, Jr., Noah Brown, William Few, Brockholst Livingston, Cadwallader D. Colden, George Arcularious, Thomas Buckley, Duncan B. Campbell, Benjamin Clark, James Eastburn, Henry Eckford, Thomas Eddy, Philip Hone, John E. Hyde, Peter A. Jay, Zachariah