panics of 1837 and 1857; James Punnett from 1858 to 1870; William L. Jenkins was elected in 1870, and is now its President. David Thompson, son of Collector Jonathan Thompson, was cashier from 1834 to 1846. He was one of its early Board of Directors, for some years its Vice-President and at various times its acting President. He retired from the cashier's office in 1846, to accept the presidency of the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, which he held for twenty-five years, retaining at the same time his directorship in the Bank of America. He succeeded William Bard, who was the first President of this aristocratic Trust Company, which was founded by and has always been in the hands of the real estate owners and capitalists of the oldest New York families. Among its trustees from time to time have been such men as Hamilton Fish, William B. Astor, W. C. Schermerhorn, Rutherfurd Stuyvesant, Jolm David Wolfe, Robert Ray, Robert Goelet, John O. Jones (President of the Chemical Bank), Joseph Sampson, Moses Taylor, and Robert Lenox Kennedy.
The New York Clearing House was established by the banks in 1853. The suggestion first came from the great financier, Albert Gallatin, who published a pamphlet emphasizing its vast importance. The system had been in operation in London since about the beginning of the present century, and the bankers, by the daily exchange of drafts at the Clearing House, were able to reduce the balance to a very small sum; and that balance was immediately paid in notes at the Bank of England. The need was so manifest that an association was duly organized, consisting at first of fifty-two banks, five of which were soon closed by their inability to meet its requirements. The number of banks, including the Sub-treasury, connected with the Association at present (1883) is sixty-three. It happened about the time that the Clearing-house came to pass that there was an overgrowth of banks. Some one has said that in 1851 a new bank was started for every month in the year, and in 1852 one for every two months, while nine were added in 1853. The older banks, with their well established machinery, worked together smoothly. But when forty new banks were added, difficulties arose that could not be so easily controlled; thus came an expansion of credit which prepared the conditions of the panic of 1857. Meanwhile the Clearing-house went into full operation. Hitherto it had been necessary for each bank in the morning to make up its accounts, and send a man with bills and bags of gold to every other bank to adjust its differences. Where banks were a considerable distance apart the work occupied nearly a whole day, and was attended with fatigue, frequent loss, and no little danger. The Clearing-
