A poor guy drops dead in front of a bank and that ignites a bank run. I wonder how anxious people were back then about if they bank they did business with would fail.
Well you had (and still have today) fractional reserve banking and back then there was no insurance on bank a accounts. So yeah, I’d have kept no more money in a bank than I needed to to cover routine check writing and expenses that I’d not ordinarily pay for in cash.