102 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 
phia Negro, the father of Dr. Purvis, the Negro 
trustee. These men were then appointed by the 
Secretary of the Treasury. Leipold was chosen 
by the trustees because he was an expert ac- 
countant; Creswell, “because he was a cabinet 
officer, the most practical Republican we ever 
had,” and because he had a reputation for ap- 
pointing Negroes to office;? Purvis was chosen 
because of his color, a Negro being needed to 
represent the race. 
The commissioners took charge of the affairs 
of the defunct bank on July 11, 1874. The salary 
of each was fixed at $3,000 a year and they were 
required by the Secretary of the Treasury to 
make a joint bond for $100,000. From the first 
there was trouble among them in regard to the 
proper division of the work and responsibilities. 
Creswell and Purvis did practically nothing but 
sign the checks for dividends (quite a task, how- 
ever) and they soon made it evident that they 
did not intend to undertake other duties, but to 
leave the business for Leipold to look after. 
Creswell seemed to think that his part was done 
by allowing the use of his name and his reputa- 
tion as a friend of the Negroes; and Purvis 
seemed to feel that his part was merely to be a 
Negro member on the board of commissioners. 
statement: “Cardozo, a Negro, was superintendent of Public Education 
and Purvis, a Philadelphia mulatto, was Adjutant General of the state. 
These two men were considered by the natives to be the most respectable 
members of the state) government.” Possibly this Purvis was one of 
those connected with the Freedmen’s Savings Bank. 
3 Creswell was a native of Maryland, and in politics had been a 
Whig, later a Democrat, and finally a Radical Republican. He served as 
congressman and senator from Maryland during the Civil War, and in 
1865 he became Postmaster General, resigning on July 3, 1874.