On the five
rolls of this microfilm publication are
reproduced 46 volumes of indexes to
deposit ledgers that list the names of
depositors in 26 branch offices of the
Freedman's Savings and Trust Company,
1865-74.
The Company was
incorporated by an act of March 3, 1865
(13 Stat. 510), as a banking institution
established in the city of Washington,
District of Columbia, for the benefit of
freed slaves. The military savings banks
at Norfolk, Va., and Beaufort, S.C.,
were transferred to the Company soon
after it was founded. From 1865 through
1870, 33 branches were established,
including an office that was opened in
New York City in 1866. The purpose of
the corporation was set out in section 5
of the act of March 3, 1865, which
provided as follows:
That the
general business and object of the
corporation hereby created shall be
to receive on deposit such sums of
money as may from time to time be
offered therefore, by or on behalf
of persons heretofore held in
slavery in the United States, or
their descendants, and investing the
same in the stocks, bonds, Treasury
notes, or other securities of the
United States.
In 1874 the
Company failed, and by the terms of an
act of June 20, 1874 (18 Stat, 132), the
trustees were authorized to select, with
the approval of the Secretary of the
Treasury, three commissioners to take
charge of the effects of the Company and
to report on its financial state to the
Secretary of the Treasury. The
arrangement was altered by an act of
February 21, 1881 (21 Stat. 327),
whereby the Secretary of the Treasury
was authorized and directed to appoint
the Comptroller of the Currency to
administer the affairs of the Company.
The Comptroller was made commissioner ex
officio, and he submitted annual reports
to Congress. The final report on the
trust company was submitted in 1920.
The indexes
include the depositors' names and
account numbers, or in some cases what
appear to be the page numbers of the
deposit ledgers. In a few volumes the
amount of the deposit is also given.
The indexes are
arrange alphabetically by name of State
and thereunder by name of city where the
branch was located. The names are
indexed alphabetically by the first
letter of the last name and thereunder
by sound. In several volumes parts of
the alphabet are missing, and in some
cases entire volumes are missing.
The volumes are
general indexes to deposit ledgers
except one volume for the District of
Columbia is entitled "Index to
Business Ledger Volume B"; the
volume for New Bern, N.C., is entitled
"Index to General Ledger A";
and several volumes for different
branches are entitled "Indexes to
Schedule."
The records
reproduced in this microfilm publication
are among the holdings of the National
Archives and Records Service designated
as Records of the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency, Record
Group 101.
Closely related
records in the same record group include
registers of depositors' signatures,
reproduced as M816, and dividend payment
records, 1882-89, that are not indexed.
The indexes to the deposit ledgers are
useful as a finding aid to these series.
The deposit ledgers themselves are not
among the records and it is not know
whether they are extant. Other related
records include loan and real estate
ledgers and journals, 1870-1916,
arranged roughly in chronological order;
inspectors' reports, minutes of meetings
of committees, and journal of the board
of trustees, 1865-74; and letters
received by the commissioners of the
Company and by the Comptroller of the
Currency as ex officio commissioner,
1870-1914. Interspersed among these
records are legal papers, canceled
checks, payrolls, expense checks, and
passbooks.
Other record
groups containing related documents are:
Records of the Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, Record
Group 105, and Records of the Adjutant
General's Office, 1780's-1917, Record
Group 94.
The records
reproduced in this microfilm publication
were prepared for filming by Lockwood
Wright, who also wrote these
introductory remarks and provided the
other editorial material.
