The Joseph Smith Papers website discusses the historical background to the "Kirtland Safety Society Bank Stock Ledger, 18 October 1836–12 June 1837."
"Historical Introduction: Kirtland Safety Society Bank Stock Ledger, 18 October 1836–12 June 1837," The Joseph Smith Papers website, accessed August 19, 2024
Historical Introduction
When JS and other leaders of the Church of the Latter Day Saints took steps to establish a community bank in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1836, stock sales were vital to its success. In order to acquire the funds needed to operate the institution, which they named the Kirtland Safety Society, and redeem its banknotes for specie, the society solicited subscriptions from individuals interested in purchasing the society’s stock. The society’s constitution and articles of agreement set the capital stock at $4 million and divided that amount into 80,0000 shares of stock sold for $50 each. Stockholders could purchase as little as a single share of stock and as many as 3,000 shares. Once they agreed to purchase stock in the society, they were required to pay an initial installment of $0.26 per share of stock, based on the total amount of stock they had agreed to purchase.
The $50 price of stock for the Kirtland Safety Society was lower than average, but not unusually low when compared with similar financial institutions. What was substantially reduced was the amount stockholders were required to pay when they first subscribed for stock. At $0.26 per share, this payment was significantly lower than what other banks charged—typically between $5 and $50 per share.
Stock subscriptions began in mid-October 1836, when Sidney Rigdon purchased the first stock. On 22 October 1836, JS subscribed for 3,000 shares and made an initial payment of $1,342.69. The majority of stockholders in the Kirtland Safety Society subscribed for their shares of stock between October and December 1836. By January 1837, the society had more than one hundred stockholders who had paid nearly $12,000 in specie or banknotes to fulfill some portion of the first installment due on their stock. The Safety Society officers showed leniency to those who could not pay their full initial payment. Although individuals who subscribed for 1,000 shares should have made an initial payment of $262.50, many only ever paid a few dollars, and some never paid anything. This created a severe funding problem for the society.
The stock ledger featured here, which includes entries from October 1836 to June 1837, contains an individual account, spanning two pages, for each of the society’s stockholders. These accounts note the amount of stock the individual subscribed for and any payments or withdrawals made on the stock. Most stockholders were Latter-day Saints living in Kirtland, with a small number of Painesville residents also investing in the society. The majority of the stockholders were men, though a number of women also subscribed.9 Most subscribers were not wealthy, helping explain why many paid only a small portion of what they owed on stock to the bank. While some church leaders invested in the bank, the majority of stockholders held no leadership positions in the church.
A complete list of stockholders was never created, but a partial list was printed in the March 1837 issue of the church newspaper Messenger and Advocate.10 The ledger is the best contemporary source for identifying stockholders. However, the ledger may be incomplete, as some individuals named as subscribers in January 1837 do not appear in the book. In a few instances the names in the ledger were altered by knife erasure and overwriting from the original name inscribed in the ledger. This was probably done after the Safety Society had closed. However, these names can be recovered through careful analysis, along with a comparison to the contemporary index and aided by notations made by Arthur Deming, a church critic who acquired the book in the 1880s.