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Washington County Pennsylvania History and Families
  
Industries, Businesses, and Advertising
Banking and Finances
Financial Panics of 1837, 1857, and 1867
Banks failed, payments suspended; Lasted year & a half beyond 1837
From The Charleroi Mail Newspaper, May 16, 1914, page unknown:
FINANCIAL PANICS OF 1837, 1857, AND 1867
Year That Many Banks Failed and Specle [sic] Payments Were Practically
Entirely Suspended
Political rancor was at its height when Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill
renewing the charter of the United States bank and removed the treasury
deposits, under which opposition the bank collapsed and a vast number of state
banks competed for the business, which included the issue of bank notes.
In the history of banking the year of 1837 is prominent for one of the
worst panics that was ever known in America, which resulted in the failure of
many banks and a universal suspension of specie [sic] payments throughout the
country, which were not renewed until over a year and a half later, says the
National Magazine. During this trying period, when banking operations
were practically wiped out of existence, all the banks but three continued
doing business in Boston. There were temporary suspensions of specie [sic]
payments in 1857, known as the panic of '57 [1857]; also in '62 [1862], when
Boston followed the lead of New York, since it was evident that further
attempts to tide the popular panic would mean ruin to all the interests
involved. There are men still living today [1914] who remember with a
shudder the trying times of '57 [1857], when the merchants met in the Boston's
merchant exchange day after day, insisting that the banks must be sustained,
until finally, Amasa [?] WALKER rose up and said: "Gentlemen, the banks
must suspend specie [sic] payments. There is no other course to be
followed." There were rumors of discontent and they were almost
ready to lynch the ex-governor of the commonwealth [Massachusetts] for the
bold position he had taken, but he faced them courageously, and next came the
news of the suspension of the New York banks.
Researched by Judith Florian
Note: Charleroi PA is in Washington County PA
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