The Sylvester Family of Plainview, Minnesota*

$1,000 reward; Hearing discloses "startling" Sylvester family finances

October 30, 1925 - November 13, 1925

PAGE 159

to insurance policies.
Mr. Mikkelson prepared his answer to the application Thursday and informs us that the hearing will take the form of a regular trial. He also said that information known only to the members of the closed bank and the state banking department, will likely come out at this hearing which will show the manner of handling deposits in the bank. A warm legal battle is expected in the federal court.
In case the application is not allowed by the federal court, the case is expected to be continued in district court as a civil case.
The Wabasha County Commissioners at a special meeting Tuesday duplicated the $500 reward offered last week by Governor Christianson for the arrest of E. L. Sylvester. The depositors committee appeared before them, presenting their petition, which was granted without hesitation. This makes the reward for the capture of the missing banker $1,000. These rewards have revived the speculation as to Mr. Sylvester’s whereabouts and many rumors are passing around, among them a statement supposed to be made with authority, that he would be taken within a week.
The depositor’s organization has, for the past week or more, been circulating a paper asking for subscripters to a fund for providing funds to carry on their work. Their main expense will be that of attorney’s fees, but the committee will need some money to carry on their work.
The Wabasha county authorities have been constantly working toward the capture of Sylvester ever since he boarded the train for Chicago. They have found some information but while none of it has led them any nearer, apparently, to his arrest, it has proven to them that he is still alive.
November 13, 1925-

Sylvester Case Hearing Saturday Discloses Startling Facts
Finances of Missing Banker’s Family Are Barred at Winona
Senator Carley Makes Public Information Concerning Expenditures
Bank Records show Mrs. Sylvester Drew Checks for $55,000
Young Son of Family Drew on Father for $11,000 in 4 years
Fifty-five thousand dollars, it is alleged, was drawn from the Plainview State Bank by Mrs. E. L. Sylvester, wife of the missing president of that institution, during the eleven years ending Dec. 31, 1924 and Edwin L. Sylvester Jr., "baby" of the Sylvester family, spent $11,000 attending the University of Minnesota in four years.
That is where some of the money went which Edwin L. Sylvester, now a fugitive from justice with a reward of $1,000 offered for his capture, is alleged to have taken from the bank according to a statement issued to the press by Senator James A. Carley, attorney for the closed bank, and for the trustees in the involuntary bankruptcy case of the vanished Plainview banker.
Figures Taken From Bank Statements
Senator James A. Carley’s sensational disclosures given as reasons for the bank’s failure, were taken from data furnished by the Minnesota banking department, and the detailed table of checks drawn on the bank, that will later be introduced as evidence in the trustee fight to save for the bank depositors the money that can be realized from the Sylvester homestead, and other personal property of the bankrupt normally exempt as assets under the federal bankruptcy law.
The information would have been released through direct testimony of banking experts Saturday if the hearing here had not abruptly ended after a clash over legal questions with a continuation to Dec. 12 without the trustee witness testifying.
The vast volume of data representing months of work by the employees of the banking department was thrown open to the press at the close of the hearing so that the people of Plainview and the depositors of the closed bank might learn for the first time

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* SOURCE: Manzow, Ron (compiler), "The Sylvester Family of Plainview, Minnesota - a collection of information taken from the Plainview News, other newspapers, letters, and diaries beginning in 1884": Plainview Area History Center, 40 4th St. S.W., Plainview, MN 55964. Compiled in 2001.

NOTE: from Ron Manzow, December 2001: "Feel free to reproduce the pages for anyone who wants a copy. It was compiled to be shared... All I ask is that they consider sending a check to the [Plainview Area] History Center to help us out. That should be enough."