OF SAVINGS BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES FROM THEIR INCEPTION IN 1816 DOWN TO 1874. WITH DISCUSSIONS OF THEIR THEORY, PRACTICAL WORKINGS AND INCIDENTS, PRESENT CONDITION AND BY EMERSON W. KEYES, LATE DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF THE BANKING DEPARTMENT Entered according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-six BY EMERSON W. KEYES, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. WEED, PARSONS & COMPANY, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS. ALBANY, N. Y. PREFACE. THE relation sustained by the writer for a number of years to the Savings Banks of the State of New York is set forth with sufficient detail in the progress of these volumes. That relation and its incidents were considerations in his favor in undertaking the preparation of a History of Savings Banks. It is unfortunate, however, that his claims to special fitness for such a work should not extend beyond the foregoing; that the favorable conditions mentioned could not be supplemented in him by literary culture, by the genius or the habit of author ship, nor yet by that release from engrossing pursuits, which, faithfully employed, might serve to atone for the deficiencies herein acknowledged. That a record of the origin, growth and achievements of an interest which in its present development ranks among the first in magnitude and importance in our country, is desirable, it is believed will not be questioned; that it is desirable now, before much pertaining to its inception and early progress shall pass beyond our reach, receding into the obscurity of the buried past, is scarcely more open to question. It is in this conviction that the author has entered upon the preparation of these volumes. He bespeaks for their faults no tenderness of criticism, for upon these he has none himself to bestow. His ideal of such a record is as high as that of any one can |