Strong on the panic of 1837

The more things change… Here is George Templeton Strong on the Wall Street panic of 1837, when he was 17 years old. He is writing on May 4.

Terrible news in Wall Street. [John] Fleming, late president of the Mechanics Bank, found dead in his bed this morning. Some say prussic acid; others (and the coroner’s jury) say “mental excitement” and apoplexy. Anyhow there’s a run on the bank—street crowded—more feeling of alarm and despondency in Wall Street than has appeared yet. The bank is to be kept open till five o’clock; politic move, that. Fears entertained that tomorrow the attack will be general on all the banks; if so they’ll go down and then all the banks from Maine to Louisiana must follow—universal ruin. People talk ominously about rebellions and revolutions on this side of the Atlantic, and if they come on this side, political disturbances will soon break out on the other.

There are matters of no little weight depending on the doings of Wall Street for the next four or five days. I wish I were ten or fifteen years older.