The Banker Who Vanished: A $300,000 Collapse Comes Home to Bellingham
After fleeing two days before his bank failed, H. J. Weltry promises to return, plead guilty, and help untangle the wreckage of the Home Securities Bank.
Bellingham.—H. J. Weltry, formerly president of the Home Securities Bank of Bellingham, who disappeared two days before the bank closed last February and for whose arrest in connection with the wrecking of the institution a reward of $1000 had been offered, has notified Prosecuting Attorney Livesley through business friends that he is on his way to Bellingham, where he will surrender and plead guilty to the charges and assist in straightening out the tangle in the bank's affairs. The reward offered will be withdrawn.
Weltry is charged with using bank funds to finance various land company enterprises. The bank failed for $300,000, and is expected to pay depositors about 40 per cent of their claims.
“Welty is charged with using bank funds to finance various land company enterprises. The bank failed for $300,000, and is expected to pay depositors about 40 per cent of their claims.”
A bank president using depositors' money to float his own land schemes, then vanishing when the house of cards fell — the 1910 version of a savings-and-loan scandal. Bellingham depositors got back 40 cents on the dollar; today's bank-failure and fraud cases still turn on the same question of who gets made whole.
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