THE OREGONIAN, APRIL 23, 1901
IS STILL A MYSTERY
No Light on Failure of the Vancouver Bank; Examiner Remains in Charge
The Body of President Brown was Laid at Rest Yesterday—He Also Left Farewell Message to His Wife
VANCOUVER, Wash., April 22—There were no new developments today concerning the failure of the First National Bank and the sensational double suicide that occurred in connection therewith. Bank Examiner Maxwell, who was acting as temporary receiver, has as yet nothing to give out in connection with the failure and the cause of it is still shrouded in mystery.
The bodies of the dead president and cashier were removed to their respective houses last night after dark. The grief of the families of the deceased officials is pitiful in the extreme. While enough of the condition of the bank has leaked out to satisfy the depositors that the wrecking of the bank was deliberately planned and systematically carried out, still no suspicion attaches that the families of the deceased officers knew anything concerning it, and the double shock of the startling disclosures attending the failure, and the subsequent announcement of the remarkable suicide fell with crushing force upon them.
Brown’s wife and daughter, the latter being Mrs. Harriet Brown Carpenter, were both ill at the time. S.W. Brown, the aged father of the deceased president of the bank, is said to be in a dying condition as a result of the terrible happening. He is 82 years of age.
It is now certain that neither official went home after leaving the bank Friday evening. It is also practically proven that the fatal shots, which ended the lives of both, were fired Friday evening about 7:30 o’clock. No man has yet been found who saw either man after they left the bank at 6 o’clock, one hour and a half before they are supposed to have killed themselves.
It was given out today by members of the Brown family, that Brown also left a dying message to his wife, which was found on his person. It was scribbled on the leaf page of a small memorandum book. This book is in the possession of the family and could not be seen.
The committee of prominent citizens who requested Levi Ankeny, the Walla Walla banker, to reorganize the wrecked bank are as yet unable to report results. Mr. Ankeny is favorable to the project, but can do nothing until the investigation of the Controller of the Currency reach that stage that he can make a statement of the bank’s condition.
FUNERAL OF PRESIDENT BROWN
Large Cortege Followed Remains to the Last Resting Place
VANCOUVER, Wash., April 22—The funeral of Charles Brown, the dead bank president, which took place from the family residence at 2 o’clock today, was largely attended. The funeral services, which were conducted by the Rev. T.L. Elliott of Portland, were brief and simple in the extreme. The grief-stricken wife upon whom the shock falls heaviest, and whose life at times during the past two days has almost been despaired of, by sheer force of willpower insisted upon raising from her bed when the body was brought to the house and follow her dead husband to the cemetery. The following persons, all of whom were intimate friends of the deceased, acted as pallbearers: George H. Stevenson, L.B. Clough, A.J. Cook, E.M. Rands, Chatfield Knight, and A.C. Chumasero.
With the exception of S.W. Brown, the aged father, and Mrs. Harriet Brown Carpenter, the oldest daughter, who are confined to their beds by sickness, all the members of the immediate family were present.
Charles Brown was a man of high culture and fine literary taste. He was naturally possessed of a genial disposition and a generous impulse. In recent years, however, as a result, no doubt, of financial reverses, and of his extreme sensitiveness, he was strongly inclined to be pessimistic and to see the dark side of things, and would give himself over to morose and melancholy thought and forebodings. He possessed the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens to a remarkable degree. This was also true of E.L. Canby, the dead cashier. Large properties for years have been entrusted to the management of these men by their business acquaintances and friends without the thought of a bond or security and with implicit confidence in their honesty. Even now many of the friends whom they served and who trusted them refuse to believe the story of their guilt. It is a common thing since the failure of the bank to hear leading citizens and large depositors of the bank remark: “I would have trusted Brown and Canby with all I am worth and would do so yet again were they alive.”
The time of the funeral of Mr. Canby has been changed from 2 o’clock to 11:30 a.m. tomorrow.