Author: (Dexter, Andrew Jun.; Colwell, William; Rhodes, William; Smith, Simeon; Mason, James B.; et al).
Title: Report of the Committee Appointed by the General Assembly of the State of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations. At the February Session, A.D. 1809, to Inquire Into the Situation of the Farmers' Exchange Bank in Glocester, with the Documents Accompanying the Same.
Description: Published by Order of the General Assembly, March Session 1809. 1809. - Octavo, 8-1/4 inches high by 5-1/4 inches wide. Softcover, with printed self-wraps titled in black on the front cover. The pamphlet is completely disbound. The covers are foxed and stained with chipping along the spine and a tear to the front edge of the front cover. 43 pages, including the covers. There is scattered foxing throughout with a short tear to the front edge of the first text leaf and top edge of the second leaf. A complete copy of this RARE pamphlet. RARE. Chartered in 1804, The Farmers' Exchange Bank located in the village of Chepachet in Glocester, rose to notoriety as the first bank in the history of the United States to fail. The directors had no knowledge as to how to manage the bank and its books were kept in a confused state. Nearly all of the original directors sold out their shares in 1808 and the new directors delivered the bank's books to the General Assembly which appointed a committee to investigate all of the concerns. "The cashier, Mr. Colwell, was committed to close confinement, no person being allowed to converse with him. The president of the bank left the State, and his estates were put under attachment. All the members of the General Assembly manifested a full determination to take the most vigorous and decided measures to thoroughly probe this iniquitous deed to its very centre." "An article in The American, a newspaper published in Providence, March, 1809, has the following: 'The funeral of the Farmers' Exchange Bank, in Glocester, is on its way to the General Assembly at East Greenwich. It appears on examination of the books and papers at Glocester, by a committee appointed for that purpose, that a certain well-known trader in bank stock, living in Boston, had got out of that bank something more than half a million of dollars, for which he had given only his note without an endorser, payable at the end of eight years from November last.." [Quoted from Elizabeth A. Perry's "A Brief History of the Town of Glocester, Rhode Island: Preceded by a Sketch of the Territory While a Part of Providence", Providence Press Co. Printers, 1886]. Best known as the person responsible for the first bank failure in the United States, Andrew Dexter had founded or taken control of small banks in remote parts of the United States. He then issued large quantities of bank notes to finance his undertakings. Due to the poor travel conditions of the time, he could print bank notes in Gloucester, Rhode Island (a rural town with no road), ship them to his bank in Detroit, Michigan (still a frontier outpost at the time) and count on months and/or years before the were returned and presented for payment. Dexter's banks issued so much paper that innocent merchants, located far from the issuing banks, trusted his banks above others. Fair .

Keywords: AMERICANA; ECONOMICS; BANKING; RHODE ISLAND; PROVIDENCE; REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS; FARMERS' EXCHANGE BANK IN GLOCESTER; GLOUCESTER; BANK FAILURE; NINETEENTH CENTU


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