Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II, Part 80

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 800

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"To the Public: The undersigned, know- ing and relying on the ample ability of the following banking houses in the city of St. Louis, and with a view of quieting the public mind in regard to the safety of deposits made with them, hereby pledge themselves and offer as a guarantee their property to make good all deposits with either of said banking houses, to-wit: Messrs. Lucas & Simonds; Bogy, Miltenberger & Co .; Tesson & Dan- gen ; L. A. Benoist & Co .; John J. Anderson

& Co., and the Boatmen's Saving Institution. Signed by John O'Fallon, J. B. Grant, L. M. Kennett, John How, Andrew Christy, Greeley & Gale, Samuel B. Wiggins, Switzer, Platt & Co., R. M. Funkhouser & Co., Amadee Berthold, Green Erskine, Ed Walsh, Louis A. LeBeaume, D. A. January, James Harrison, Charles P. Chouteau, Wayman Crow, R. J. Lockwood, Charles Tillman, Wm. L. Ewing, Isaac Walker, John C. Rust."

This card had the desired effect; no run on the banks took place, and in a few days the panic had passed away. Page, Bacon & Co. reopened on February 19th following, but on April 4th were forced to close their doors again by the failure of their branch house in San Francisco, and they never resumed again. The crisis of 1857 was sharp and severe in St. Louis. On September 28th there was a run on the banking houses, which forced the sus- pension of Darby & Barksdale and John J. Anderson & Co. An attempt. was made to quiet the excitement by the method that had been successfully resorted to two years be- fore. The strongest private banking house in the city was James H. Lucas & Co., the senior member of which was the largest prop- erty-owner and the representative of one of the oldest families, and it was apprehended that the brunt of the storm would fall upon it. A card was published, therefore, guarantee- ing the safety of deposits made with it, and this card was signed by James E. Yeatman, John How, R. J. Lockwood, Edward J. Gay & Co., Edward Walsh, John O'Fallon, John H. Gay, Marshall Brotherton, Wm. Renshaw, Jr., John S. McCune, D. A. January & Co., D. H. Armstrong, Charles K. Dickson, Thomas T. Gantt, William M. McPherson, James B. Eads and Charles Tillman, all prom- inent and responsible citizens, who possessed the public confidence. A similar card signed by fourteen wealthy citizens was published, guaranteeing deposits in the house of Renicle & Peterson. The run was continued on Sep- tember 29th, with diminished force, and with- out having the effect of immediately forcing further suspensions ; but the private banking houses were weakened by the trials of the crisis, and failures followed.

It was a dark time in St. Louis, the darkest in its business history, and it looked as if everything must give way and leave nothing to rebuild on. Fortunately, the darkness did not last long. The private banking

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houses never reopened their doors, but the new State banks which had only been estab- lished that year, under the general banking law, resumed in the December following. It did not take St. Louis long to recover from the prostration. The West and South had good crops, the river trade was active, and the increasing movement of traffic between the West and the South and to Kansas and Nebraska through the city soon began to efface the effects of the crisis and give prom- ise of a complete restoration. Indeed, a restoration was almost effected, and St. Louis had become adjusted to the new and better methods of doing business, when the shadow of Civil War began to spread over the land, in the end of the year 1860. In that year there were present all the material elements of prosperity-good crops at good prices, an active spirit of enterprise and profitable trade between the West and South. But when the presidential election in November was fol- lowed by signs of trouble that could not be mistaken, a depression came over the coun- try, prices declined, credits were contracted, Southern collections became difficult at first, and then ceased entirely. Business moved on in an uneasy, apprehensive condition, until the fall of 1861, when the banks began to sus- pend-all those in St. Louis, except the Ex- change Bank, on November 26th, and those of New York in the following December. The St. Louis banks did not continue long in suspension, but resumed in a few weeks ; and it was not until the following year, when the government made its first issue of legal tender notes, that all the banks of the country abandoned specie payment and for nearly seventeen years conducted their transactions . in paper money.

The crisis of 1873 was brought on chiefly through excessive railroad building in the West. In the five years preceding 27,447 miles of new road had been constructed, at a cost of $1,700,000,000 obtained by enormous issues of bonds, which were held by banks in the United States and capitalists in Europe. The destruction of nearly $200,000,000 of property by the great Chicago fire in 1871, and of $65,000,000 in the Boston fire after- ward contributed to the phenomenon, and there was also the general indiscriminate ex- tension of credits that accompanies an era of prosperity ; but the wasting of seventeen hun- dred millions of the nation's wealth in the

construction of works that were not needed, and did not; and for many years to come could not, pay, was the main cause, and, nat- urally enough, the crash came through the failure of the banking house of Jay Cook & Co., of Philadelphia, agents of the govern- ment, who were involved in the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad. There were several preliminary failures in New York be- fore that of the great Philadelphia firm-the Mercantile Warehouse and Security Com- pany, through advances made on the bonds of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, on September 13th, Kenyon, Cox & Co., through advances on Canadian Southern bonds-and these omens had caused the banks to take alarm and call in their loans and advance the rates; but when the an- nouncement was made on September 18th that Jay Cook & Co. could not meet their paper, everybody knew that the crisis was on the country. The house was carrying $15,000,000, Northern Pacific paper, and near- ly all the banks in New York were loaded with similar railroad securities, and it was instantly recognized that these were the weak points through which the danger had come. Railway shares were thrown on the market to be sold, by the bushel, without regard to value, and all day long stock brokers in New York were announcing their failures. Next day the prominent banking house of Fisk & Hatch went down; there was a run on the Union Trust Company and the Fourth National Bank and the panic became so un- governable, and the distrust so general that the banks refused one another's certified checks. On the 20th the Union Trust Com- pany and a number of banks suspended, and the Stock Exchange was closed at II o'clock, for the first time in its history, to give time for the excitement to subside. It remained closed until September 30th. Some relief was afforded by the government coming forward and purchasing $13,000,000 bonds, but the most efficient protection was found in a meas- ure devised by the Clearing House Asso- ciation, certificates of the association issued upon bills receivable and other approved se- curities, and made available in the settlement of balances at the clearing house. The col- lapse of 1873 did not produce anything in the nature of a panic in St. Louis. It was ex- pected and prepared for. There were no runs on the banks, no failures and no suspensions.

439

FINANCIAL CRISES.

The banks met the crisis promptly and wisely . losses and by a derangement of the machin- by a concert of action and the adoption of a ery of business, and a depression that lasted for some years before any substantial indica- tions of revival were perceptible. Four years later, in 1877, there was a second shock with a general falling off in business, attended by the failure, in July, of the German Bank, the Butchers' and Drovers' Bank, the North St. Louis Saving Association, the Bank of St. Louis, the Bremen Savings Bank, and the National Bank of the State of Missouri. Some of these failures brought great loss and distress to a large body of small depositors. method which saved them and the business community with them. On September 25th, one week after the storm broke in New York, they resolved not to pay out currency on checks, except for small sums, to be optional with the banks on which they were drawn, but to certify checks drawn on balances, pay- able through the clearing house only. The committee of management of the Clearing House Association was authorized and directed to issue immediately clearing house certificates in sums of $500 each, not exceed- ing $2,000,000 in amount, to be used for the settlement of balances between the banks of the association; each bank to be entitled to these certificates in proportion to its clearings during the last preceding quarter, and such certificates to be secured by deposit of ample collateral with a special committee of five bank officers, selected by the president of the Clearing House Association, the collateral to consist of United States bonds, bonds of St. Louis city and county, and such commercial paper and other securities as the committee might consider satisfactory, the value thereof to be fixed by the committee. The arrange- ment was to last not longer than November Ist following. It was virtually a suspension of payments by the banks, but was not at- tended by the usual results of suspension, for, instead of bringing disaster on the busi- ness community, it proved a barrier of pro- tection, providing what had long been recognized as the supreme need in a mon- etary crisis : an instant supply of good money, or guaranteed credit paper to serve the pur- poses of money, until the machinery of bus- iness can recover from the shock of collapse. The city government was threatened with serious trouble by the temporary suspension of the banks, as it was left without means of paying the several hundred laborers em- ployed on the street service, and to whom it was in arrears; and there was no alternative but to resort to an issue of scrip, or municipal currency, to meet their demands. This was authorized at once, and on November Ist the first notes of an issue of $300,000, "Brown- backs," as they were called, were paid out to the street laborers. Although the collapse of 1873 was not attended by immediate failures or suspensions among the banks and business houses of St. Louis, it was followed by great

The next general crisis came in 1893, after a period of extraordinary industrial activity, and was, in some measure, the result of the excessive production of manufactures. The value of these manufactures in 1890 was $9,056,764,996; a 69 per cent increase over the value of 1880, while the increase of popu- lation in the period was only 25 per cent. The industrial activity reached its climax in 1892, when the value of the products was estimated at $10,200,000,000, and the railway construction for the preceding six years was 38,799 miles. But this unexampled display of energy in industrial production was followed by a prostration the following year. The wheat crop fell off from 515,949,000 bushels, valued at $410,179,450, to 396,131,725 bush- els, valued at $258,465,805. The cotton crop, though larger in quantity, fell off in value from $339,453,125 to $291,000,000. The pig iron product fell off from 9,157,000 tons to 7,124,500 tons; and the production of steel rails from 1,485,732 tons to 1,036,467 tons. The prostration of business was exhibited in the falling off in bank clearings from $60,109,- 062,074, to $54,330,888,322. The default of railways on their bonds, which had been a conspicuous feature in the crisis of 1873, was repeated, the great Reading system of Penn- sylvania leading the way, followed by others, until there were roads having an aggregate mileage of 25,375 miles, nearly one-seventh the entire mileage of the country, with capital of $674,412,487, and bonded indebtedness of $1,212,217,033, in the hands of receivers. The derangement of industry and general business was complicated with a steady drift of gold to Europe, which caused a reduction of the stock in the government treasury from $121,266,662 on January Ist, to $103,284,218 on February 28th, continued throughout the year, until the next exports reached $87,506,-

440

FINK.

463-more than double the product of our . do to save their vaults from depletion-stop mines for the year, and greater than the net purchasing bills ; and it was accompanied by a contraction in loans and a husbanding of their remnant of resources for what might come. Of course, there was an arrest of business all along the line from the West to the East, with great stress upon merchants; and it continued until it had its effect in England, and English money, avoiding the New York banks, was sent to New Orleans and other points to be used in the direct purchase of the cotton, and the Western products which the foreign markets needed. Slowly the busi- ness of St. Louis recovered from the prostra- tion, but the recovery was not without losses that left some of the banks crippled, and ultimately resulted in consolidations. In the spring of 1899 the restoration was complete and the banks of St. Louis exhibited a strength that they never possessed before. D. M. GRISSOM. exports of gold had ever been, in a single year before, and has ever been in a single year since. There was a marked falling off in the government revenues which, together with the reduction in the treasury stock of gold, caused the apprehension that the government might be unable to redeem its obligations in gold and be forced to come to silver payment. In June the British government suspended the coinage of silver in India, and this added to the alarm. Under the Sherman act of 1890 our government was purchasing 4,500,- 000 ounces of silver, and issuing against it certificates, and as these facilitated the draw- ing of gold from the treasury for shipment abroad, the banks urged the repeal of the act as a precaution and assurance that the gov- ernment would never come to the silver standard. President Cleveland called an extra session of Congress August 7th, and after a protracted and exhaustive discussion Fink, Joseph H., was born in Carroll County, Maryland, in 1838. His parents, both of whom were natives of Pennsylvania, came from distinguished families, whose members performed deeds of valor and patriotic brav- ery during years that marked epochs in the history of the new world. The maternal grandfather of Captain Fink was an officer in the English army under General Brad- dock, and the paternal grandfather was a sol- dier in the French service. J. H. Fink left Maryland in 1856. The old family homestead stood on the line that separates Pennsylvania from Maryland, and he was therefore almost as nearly allied with the sentiments and in- terests of Pennsylvania as of the State within whose borders he was born, having attended college at Gettysburg. The institution which he was proud to honor as his alma mater has since become the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his collegiate course Mr. Fink sought fortune in the far South, locating in New Orleans. There he followed the call- ing of contractor and builder, and was so engaged until the outbreak of the Civil War called him to the performance of a sterner duty. In 1861 he completed the erection of what was afterward converted into the Louis- iana statehouse. Hostilities were becoming warm and, although he had resided in the Southland for a considerable time, his sym- pathies were with the section of the country which sought to preserve the Union. Passing the act of 1890 was repealed. Nevertheless, the depression of business continued, and, although the banks bore the stress upon them without going down, as in · previous crises, merchants and manufacturers were not so fortunate. It was more a commercial than a financial trouble, and the commercial fail- ures for the year involved liabilities of $346,- 779,889; an aggregate that had never been equaled before. There were no bank failures in St. Louis, but this was not because the crisis was not severely felt. It came at a time when the crops of the Western and Southern States were moving to the Atlantic seaboard, and, as the suspension of currency payments by the New York banks prevented the usual shipment of money to the West and South to pay for the crops, the task of paying for the Western crop fell upon the Western banks, and those of St. Louis were forced to bear their share of the strain. A steady flow of shipments to New York, without the usual accompanying flow of money to the West to pay for them, resulted in the transfer of their resources to the East, where it was unavail- able. There was a glut of New York ex- change in St. Louis, but it was not converti- ble, for the New York banks were paying only in clearing house certificates, which were good enough in New York, but of no use in St. Louis. In this condition of things, there was but one thing for the St. Louis banks to

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FINKELNBURG-FINNEY.

through the Farragut blockade, he left New Orleans and took a long trip, which included New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis, his ultimate destination being Cairo, Illinois, where he met Captain Foster, of the United States Navy, whose acquaint- ance he had formed in 1858, while in Chili, South America. During the time which they spent together at Valparaiso, in Chili, a warm friendship sprang up, and their reunion at Cairo resulted in Mr. Fink's enlistment in the navy, having had experience as a gunner while with the Washington Artillery in New Orleans. Captain Fink had tendered his resignation from the artillery before hostili- ties between the North and South were de- clared, so that he was never attached to the Confederate service, notwithstanding the fact that the Washington Artillery became a part of the fighting force of the seceding States a short time after the declaration of war. After joining Captain Foster's command the sub- ject of this sketch boarded the "Chillicothe" as a line officer. While on that boat he was in Admiral Porter's notable expedition and par- ticipated in the hot fighting at Fort Pember- ton. Later he was an officer on the "Lafay- ette," also in service on the Mississippi River, and after the famous Red River expedition he commanded the boat "Little Rebel," which had been captured from the enemy at Mem- phis. From July, 1864, until the close of the war Captain Fink was in command of the "Little Rebel." After the war he was attached to the troop squadron, on board the '"Adder," and was in that service more than a year and a half. After this time spent at Pacific stations, he returned to the East and tendered his resig- nation, receiving a six-months' leave of ab- sence. After his leave had expired the resig- nation was accepted. Captain Fink has had a wide experience in nearly every corner of the western hemisphere. As heretofore stated, he was in Chili in 1858, and his trip extended all through South and Central America and Cuba. He was in Cuba eleven months, having in charge the erection of a large sugar house. At Aspinwall, Central America, he had a contract to build a large hotel, but sold the contract before the work was completed. In 1868, after retiring from the navy, Captain Fink removed to Kansas City, Missouri, and has since been a resident there. Until 1882 he was engaged in the con-

struction of houses, which were advanta- geously sold to those desiring to own their homes. He then engaged in the sash, door and blind business, and retired from this in 1892, after his plant had been destroyed by fire. By President Harrison he was appointed superintendent of the new government build- ing at Kansas City, then in course of con- struction, and he held this office until 1893, when, under the administration of President Cleveland, he tendered his resignation. Since that time Captain Fink has led a life of re- tirement, except in the performance of such work as his private affairs make necessary. He has never married. As a working Repub- lican, Captain Fink can truly be counted among the faithful and true who have given largely of their time and liberally of their means in order that the interests of the party. might be advanced. He has stood loyally for every enterprise that has had for its purpose the advancement of Kansas City's interests and has always been counted among the staunch supporters of every movement hav- ing a worthy end.

Finkelnburg, Gustavus A., lawyer, soldier and member of Congress, was born near Cologne, Germany, April 6, 1837. At an early age he came to this country and located in Missouri. He was educated at St. Charles College, Missouri, and then entered the law department of Ohio University at Cincinnati, where he graduated, and was ad- mitted to the St. Louis bar in 1860. At the beginning of the Civil War he entered the Union Army and served until the end. In 1864 he was elected to the Missouri Legis- lature as a radical Republican, and in 1866 re-elected and chosen speaker pro tempore. In 1868 he was elected from the Second Mis- souri district, to the Forty-first Congress, by a vote of 11,506 to 8,280 for Lindley, Demo- crat, and in 1870 was re-elected. In 1876 he was the Republican candidate for Governor against John S. Phelps, Democrat, and was beaten.

Finley .- See "Oregon."

Finney, Thomas M., clergyman and philanthropist, was born in St. Louis, July 23, 1827, and died in the same city October I, 1900. His education in primary branches was obtained in the private schools of St. Louis, conducted from time to time by Major Lowe

442

FINNEY.

in the session house of the First Presbyterian Church, at the southwest corner of Fourth Street and Washington Avenue; by Mr. O'Toole, at the northwest corner of Wash- ington Avenue and Eighth Street, and by Abel Rathbone Corbin, in the basement of the Methodist Church, then located at the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Wash- ington Avenue. In 1840 he entered St. Charles College, the first Protestant col- lege established west of the Mississippi River, and there continued his studies two years. During the next two years he was a student at St. Louis University, from which institu- tion he was graduated in the class of 1844. He then determined to continue his studies at Yale College, and was one of the first three students to enter that institution whose place of residence was west of the Mississip- pi River. The travel at that time from St. Louis to the Atlantic seaboard was by boat to Pittsburg, thence by stage across the mountains to Chambersburg, to which place the Pennsylvania Central Railroad had been extended from Philadelphia. It required no small amount of courage and resolute deter- mination for a youth of seventeen to leave his home and, without companionship, enter upon such a journey in quest of knowledge. He was graduated from Yale with the class of 1847, that being the first class graduated by that gifted scholar and renowned educator, Theodore Dwight Woolsey. Returning home, he chose the law as his profession and studied in the office of Gamble & Bates, the first named of whom afterward became Civil War Governor of Missouri, while the last named was Attorney General of the United States during the first term of President Lincoln's administration. In 1849 he was admitted to the St. Louis bar by Judge Alexander Hamil- ton of the circuit court, of which Wilson Primm, who afterward became judge of the criminal court, was then chief clerk. Thus thoroughly equipped, he entered enthusias- tically upon the practice of his profession, opening his office in the rooms of Geyer & Dayton, the first named of whom was at that time a United States Senator. Notwithstand- ing the favorable auspices under which he entered professional life as a lawyer, he did not long follow that calling. feeling that he had a call to the ministry of the gospel. From early times his family had been activelv and closely identified with the life and work of

the Methodist Church in St. Louis, his uncle, John Finney, having been one of the five who composed the first Methodist society founded in St. Louis, in January of 1821, while his father, William Finney, and his aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth hells, were the first additions to its membership, and his mother, then Jane Lee, united with the society in 1823. After determining to enter the ministry Mr. Fin- ney was licensed to preach by the Fourth Street Methodist Church, July 1, 1850, and on the Ioth of the same month he was admitted on trial into the St. Louis Conference, which held its session that year at Independence, Missouri. He passed through the several grades of the ministry and in due course of time was ordained deacon by Bishop Andrew and elder by Bishop Kavanaugh. The degree of doctor of divinity was conferred on him in 1870 by the Southern University of Ala- bama. During the first six years of his min- istry he preached successively in Saline County, at Jefferson City and Lexington Sta- tion, two years being at that time the limit of the pastoral term. In 1856 he was brought to St. Louis, and from time to time has served as pastor of several churches in that city, among them being the church which gave him his ministerial license. He was rec- ognized and honored in the church as a clear, logical and forceful preacher, but his most efficient service was rendered as a leader, an administrator and man of affairs. During fifteen years of his active ministerial work he was a presiding elder in St. Louis, serving first in that capacity from 1861 to 1868, and later from 1884 to 1892. While filling the office of presiding elder he was instrumental in bringing to the Methodist pulpits of the city a number of the most gifted, popular and successful preachers belonging to his denom- ination, and thus greatly strengthening the most prominent churches already established, while at the same time he was active in the work of church extension. Under his admin- istration the following prominent churches in St. Louis and vicinity were built and congre- gations established: St. John's, Lafayette Park, Marvin, Immanuel, at Benton, Fergu- son and Kirkwood. During his last term of service as presiding elder he was instrumen- tal in organizing the City Missionand Church Extension Society, in the work of which he took an active and earnest interest. From an early period of his connection with the

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Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II, Part 80

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors Number of Pages: 800

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 800