cling the whole horizon. Men
lost courage, confidence, and hope. They stood still while the storm
beat down, and the fearful work of destruction went on.

No commercial disaster like this had ever before visited our country.
Houses that stood unmoved through many fierce convulsions went down
like brittle reeds, and old Corporations which were thought to be as
immovable as the hills tottered and fell, crushing hundreds amid their
gigantic ruins.

Among the first to yield was the greatly extended house of Floyd,
Lawson, Lee, & Co. The news came up on the wires to S----, with orders
to stop the mills and discharge all hands. This was the bursting of the
tempest on our town. Mr. Dewey had gone to New York on the first sign of
approaching trouble, and his return was looked for anxiously by all with
whom he was deeply interested in business. But many days passed and none
saw him, or heard from him. Failing to receive any communication, Squire
Floyd, who had everything involved, went down to New York. I saw him on
the morning of his return. He looked ten years older.

It was soon whispered about that the failure of Floyd, Lawson, Lee, &
Co. was a bad one. Then came intimations that Mr. Dewey was not in
New York, and that his partners, when questioned about him, gave very
unsatisfactory replies.

"Have you any notes of the Clinton Bank, Doctor?" said a friend whom I
met in the street. "Because, if you have, take my advice and get rid of
them as quickly as possible. A run has commenced, and it's my opinion
that the institution will not stand for forty-eight hours."

It stood just forty-eight hours from the date of this prophecy, and then
closed its doors, leaving our neighborhood poorer by the disaster over
two hundred thousand dollars. There was scarcely a struggle in dying,
for the institution had suffered such an exhausting depletion that when
its extremity came it passed from existence without a throe. A Receiver
was immediately appointed, and the assets examined. These consisted,
mainly, of bills receivable under discount, not probably worth now ten
cents on the dollar. Three-fourths of this paper was drawn or endorsed
by New York firms or individuals, most of whom had already failed. The
personal account of Ralph Dewey showed him to be a debtor to the Bank
in the sum of nearly a hundred thousand dollars. The President, Joshua
Kling, had not been seen since the evening of the day on which the doors
of the Clinton Bank