eleven o'clock
There were short , wild runs on some of the smaller banks , but all were in a fair way to restore confidence when out came the rumor that the Bank of Manhattan Island was in trouble . Colonel Prentiss Drew , railroad magnate , was the president of this bank . When the bank opened for business on the Tuesday following the failure , there was a stampede of frightened depositors . Before eleven o'clock the run had assumed ugly proportions and no amount of argument could stay the onslaught . Colonel Drew and the directors , at first mildly distressed , and then seeing that the affair had become serious , grew more alarmed than they could afford to let the public see . The loans of all the banks were unusually large . Incipient runs on some had put all of them in an attitude of caution , and there was a natural reluctance to expose their own interests to jeopardy by coming to the relief of the Bank of Manhattan Island .