will meet daily for the transaction of general business relating 
to matters of exchange, to be called the Boston Stock and 
Exchange Board. The system, which they will adopt, will be 
similar to the one adopted by the Board in New York, and 
from which the mercantile part of the community has received 
so much benefit.” 
The immediate factor in starting the organization, at that 
particular time, was the conviction that such business as then 
existed could be handled more advantageously if there were 
some regular and common meeting of the brokers, and an ex- 
change of information as to market matters. This conviction 
appeared to be confirmed by the progress of the Board which 
had been organized in New York seventeen years earlier. Up 
to this time, the Boston brokers had had no common meeting 
place; indeed, many of them had no offices, orders for execu- 
tion being deposited by clients in boxes posted in one of the 
mercantile buildings. The business was of a most limited char- 
acter, consisting mainly of the purchase and sales of state bank 
notes, of exchange on the then commercial centres, of certain 
public securities, and of state bank and insurance companies 
shares. As indicative of what was regarded as the active list are 
appended the quotations issued by Mr. Degrand, a founder of 
the Exchange, at the date of its organization: 
Jnited States 
American 
Atlantic 
Atlas (new bank) 
Boston 
3unker Hill 
BANK STOCKS 
914 per cent advance 
1 per cent advance 
3 per cent advance 
5 per cent advance 
$54 per share 
535 per cent advance 
ls 
$100 
100 
100 
100 
50 
100 
1