Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1915 — Savings Bank History. [ARTICLE]

Savings Bank History.

M. W, Ilajrison, secretary of the savings bank section of the American Bankers’ Association, notes that in 1916 will be celebrated the liundreth anniversary of the establishment of banks for savings in this country. The story goes that one Patrick Colquhoun, a local magisLondon, in April, 1816, sent a letter with a pamphlet to a man in New York city by the name of Thomas Eddy, Jr., which described the plan .of a savings bank which he was instrumental in forming in London. The Hon. James Savage, of Boston, received one at aliout the same time. Plans were drawn up and subsequently perfected for a savings institution in Boston, and on December 13, 1816, the Provident Institution for Savings was chartered. A few weeks previous to this time a savings bank was organized in Philadelphia. On November 29, 1816, a meeting was held in the City hotel in New York, and the Bank for Savings was organized. However, the savings bank did not commence business until Its incorporation in 1819. These great institutions,, of which there are 634 of the kind called mutual savings banks, are run only for the benefit of the depositors; and those with capital stock, called stock savings banks, numbering 1,466, have assumed huge proportions since their establishment, until today the aggregate deposits amount to $4,667,525,744.98, with 10,502,438 depositors. Including the savings deposits in national and state banks, loan and trust companies, school savings banks, postal savings banks and building and loan associations, we would have the enormous total of $8,554,757,839.36 in savings in

the United States, with 24,189,489 depositors. Conservative estimates give us $20,000,000,000 as the combined savings in the banks of the world. This la all the result of an idea which came to the Rev. Henry Duncan, i n Ruthwell, Scotland, in 1810, who had the ability to put his ideas into practice. It is a good 11-. lustration of the cumulative value of an Idea. -Bradstreet’s.