UPDATE: Suffolk County HS -- Photo of the Week / 12.9.24 -- Southold Savings Bank, 1858

Photo of the Week

FROM THE SCHS LIBRARY & ARCHIVE

“How shall we know it is us without our past?”
– John Steinbeck

—– December 9, 2024 —–

SOUTHOLD SAVINGS BANK / 1858

Southold Savings Bank Advertisement in The Tatler, published by the Class of 1912 of Southold High School. (From the Collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society Library & Archive. Copyright (c) Suffolk County Historical Society. All rights reserved.)

The Brooklyn Eagle (June 9, 1900) described the Southold Savings Bank as “one of the most flourishing institutions of thrift in the State of New York, located in the midst of a prosperous and hard-working farming population.” The bank was incorporated by a special act of the Legislature on April 7, 1858, and then organized by the trustees at the house of William H. Wells when they elected Rensselaer T. Goldsmith as president, Theron B. Worth and Franklin H. Overton as vice presidents, and Henry Huntting as secretary and treasurer. The first trustees of the bank were Hutchinson H. Case, Moses C. Cleveland, Thomas J. Conklin, Nathaniel Corwin, Albert Albertson, Rensselaer T. Goldsmith, Joseph H. Goldsmith, Ezra L. Goldsmith, Jeremiah Goldsmith, James E. Horton, John S. Howell, Henry Huntting, John O. Ireland, Joseph Latham, Franklin H. Overton, Israel Peck, Henry Pike, Henry H. Terry, Ira B. Tuthill, William H. Wells, and Theron B. Worth.

Southold Savings Bank opened for business on July 5, 1858, in the office of the treasurer, a small room on the second story of the residence of the late Edward Huntting, where it remained for about two years. It next moved to a larger room in the residence of Jona W. Huntting. On June 16, 1891, the bank moved to its new building on Main Rd in Southold, built of brick with terra cotta and granite trim (the site of the present-day Southold Free Library). Finally, in 1927, Southold Savings Bank moved its headquarters to a new building located on the northwest corner of Main Road and Youngs Avenue, a stately structure still in use today by Southold Town.

by Wendy Polhemus-Annibell, Head Librarian

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