CHAPTER III

THE RISE OF THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE

Earliest New York Markets.—New York was founded by
the Dutch in 1623, not as an asylum for religious or political
freedom, but as a trading post. Owing to its splendid natural
port facilities, the city had, early in the eighteenth century,
become a commercial center of no small importance. Its merchants
 from the first possessed both energy and vision. As
early as 1752, in fact, they had established a general meeting
place for merchants, or “Exchange” as they called it, at the
foot of Broad Street, for dealings in meal and water-borne
produce. An even more significant market place was established
 on the wharves at the foot of Wall Street (now near
the intersection of Pearl Street), where the manufactured
goods of Europe were unloaded from incoming boats from
abroad, and auctioned off to local merchants. In 1768 the
present Chamber of Commerce was organized in the long room
of Fraunces’ Tavern, which still remains in the financial district
 as a reminder of pre-Revolutionary Manhattan.
Prior to and during the Revolutionary War, there was no
security market in New York, for the excellent reason that
practically no securities existed in colonial America. Such
capital as then existed flowed into land or goods. Only occasionally
 did American cities issue bonds; company shares were
also thoroughly exceptional, since most business was conducted
by individuals or partnerships rather than by stock corporations.
 In any case, however, the financial facilities of imperial
London, capital of the British Empire, were available to British
colonies, and until American independence was won. there was

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