| Notes |
In the fall of 1880, H. H. Terwilliger, of Mason, Ingham, became an associate owner of The Clam Lake News, but retired on January 1, 1881, to engage in the banking business at Montague, Muskegon county.
SOLVENT BANK OWNER DISAPPEARS IN MICHIGAN.
Sends Trust Deeds from Detroit to His Home and Says He is Tired of So Much Responsability.
Special to The New York Times.
MUSKEGON, Mich., Nov. 20. — Henry H. Terwilliger, for twenty years a private banker at Montague, has gone and he says he will not return. According to an investigation by experts the Montague Bank has $15,000 more assets thant liabilities.Terwilliger went to Detroit Nov. 21, and wrote back from here. The letter contained an assignment an trust deeds making W. F. Nufer and C. L. Streng trustees to conduct the business. The deeds strip their maker of everything, and provide $60 a month for his wife and daughter. The trustees refuse the trust.
Terwilliger wrote to his son, saying the family would never see him again. The bank’s assets are about $80,000. This statement accompanies the trust deeds:
“Henry Terwilliger, of humble birth and lowly spirit, unhappily finds himself bearing respondibilites which wear him and rob him of time which he feels he ought to have the liberty to spend in more congenial employment. Nobody will be able to understand his difficulties or appreciate the conditions which drive him to adopt a course of action which may be considered cowardly, if not dishonorable. Neither can any one know what pain it gives him or how keenly he realizes what sacrifice he is making or how deeply he regrets the trouble he is making his friends and patrons, but he has shaped matters so as to fully protect every interest, and is absolutely confident that nothing worse than temporary inconvenience can result to any customer of the bank, as he leaves $15,000 in excess of all liabilities.
“The cashier dos not carry away a dollar of anybody’s money.Therefore let no man say ‘Twig’ is a defaulter, a bank wrecker, or a thief. He has the utmost abhorrence of such a reputation, a fate which impends over every private banker doing business alone, however honest or smart he may be. No one man ought to have the care of the money of a community. Such a care will stagger any man sooner or later, kill him or wreck him, work him do death, or enslave him if he succeeds an blast his life if he fails. Banks ought to be incorporated.
“The business men of Montague, through ignorance, cowardice, folly and jealousy, turned down a project to incorporate the Montague bank. Let them now awake to the importance of action in this direction. Terwilliger hopes that by assigning and placing himself out of touch that arrangements can and will be made to continue the business with but little interruption. As there is no reason for any anxiety whatsoever about the funds, let all depositors view the matter sensibly and philosophically, and allow the worried banker to go in peace, and take a vacation, the first in twenty years.
“The gossips will go into hysterics, of course, and there will be plenty of abuse an ridicule, for the milk of human kindness is not equal to all, but there are those whom memory and conscience will compel to speak charitably of the absent banker, and there are others who will loyally efend him out of pure friendship and sympathy.
“He goes bearing malice toward none, sincerely regretting his weaknesses and errors and repenting his offenses, and remembering gratefully the kindness extended to him and his family during twenty years of life in Montague.
“H. H. TERWILLIGER.
“Detroit, Mich., Nov. 23, 1901.”
(Source : The New York Times, Nov. 30, 1901.)
CASE IS ONE OF ELOPEMENT
So People at Chicago Believe Relative to H. H. Terwilliger
Chicago, Dec. 3. — That Henry H. Terwilliger, the missing Montague Mich., banker, came to Chicago and met Miss Minnie Schneider either in the city or in some town near its limits is the opinion expressed by the young woman’s uncle, R. D. Tobeck., of 53 Palmer avenue. Miss Schneider, who is a resident of Oceana, Mich., and has known Terwilliger for several years, was a guest at Tobeck’s home from a week ago Saturday until Monday of last week.
She went away without giving any definite destination, and it is the belief of both Tobeck and his wife that after leaving their house she met Terwilliger. According to the story of Tobeck, Miss Schneider appeared at his house unexpectedly about 8 o’clock on Saturday morning a week ago. She announced that she intended remaining in the city a few days, and then had planned to visit friends in Hammond, Ind., and Grand Rapids, Mich.
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1854 - 1924 (70 years)
Siblings
. Mabel TERWILLIGER, b. 23 Aug 1879, Michigan 
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