Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

FREEDMEN'S SAVINGS BANK. 235
of bigotry against his race, and untiring in teaching them the
necessity of hoarding their surplus wages in some institution
that would keep them safely and profitably. A freedman, in
I866, told Wilson that his father's box had been broken into
and two hundred dollars stolen, but that the old man had still
twenty-four dollars left, and this was the first investment, under
Wilson's advice, in the Freedmen's Savings Bank. It was the
seed from which has grown what is already a gigantic and must
become an overwhelming corporation. Other deposits followed
in rapid succession, and real estate was purchased at the corner of Nineteenth and I Streets in Washington. The operations of the concern became too large in a short time, and it
was finally moved to the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Nineteenth Street. During this period colored soldiers began to deposit something of their pay, and those who
were wise enough to do so now reap the benefit of their wisdom.
In the winter of I867 the bank was moved to Seventh Street,
between E and F, where it remained for fourteen months, until
finally it was located in the new building opposite the Treasury
Department, to which I have referred. There are few banking.
houses in America equal to it, and yet, large, commodious, and
beautiful as it is, it is to be still further extended, inasmuch as
the company has purchased the whole of the western portion
of the lot, and are even now ambitious to buy out Corcoran &
Riggs, so that the entire square may be given up to them. It
may be called a tree of many branches, extending through the
South and the Southwest. They have fine buildings, with capable officers engaged in the good work of collecting the savings of the freedmen, and so hoarding and investing them as
that in the course of time the institution will be second to none
on the continent. The Washington depositors are from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred a day, and the daily amount
of business varies from six to twenty thousand dollars. In four
weeks these deposits have exceeded the drafts by sixty thousand