Biography

The Louisiana legislature, by act of March 17, 1827, incorporated the New Orleans Savings Bank Society to operate, in essence, a workingmen's bank. The act specified its "laudable purpose of encouraging ... habits of industry and economy, by receiving and investing ... such small sums of money as may be saved from the earnings of tradesmen, mechanics, labourers, servants,and others, throughout the state, thereby assuring the double advantage of security and interest..."

The Bank was to receive deposits from the above-mentioned classes, to invest them in stocks, loans, or in other manners, and to repay the sums, with interest, to the depositors on demand. Its officers included a president, two vice-presidents, and twelve trustees who together formed a Board of Managers. The first officers and trustees were named in the act and included such leading citizens as Pierre Derbigny (its first president and the future Governor of the state), Mayor Joseph Roffignac, Martin Gordon, and J.B. Plauche. The Board had the usual corporate powers and the trustees were charged "... to regulate the rate of interest to be allowed to the depositors so that they shall receive a ratable proportion of all the profits of said bank, after deducting therefrom all necessary expenses ..." An annual report to the Legislature was also required by the act.

The Bank, along with the other financial institutions of the city, became a victim of the currency and other problems following the Panic of 1837. It went into liquidation in 1842 and apparently out of existence in 1855 (its books were ordered to be placed in the custody of the city Comptroller in May,1854). A new body, the New Orleans Savings Institution, was incorporated by the Legislature (act of March 15, 1855), but the relationship of this new institution to the earlier bank, if any, is unknown.

Topics

• Banks and Banking

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