THE BACKGROUND 
Few periods could have been more auspicious for the starting 
of a stock exchange than the years between 1830 and 1837. This 
was the period which saw the bith of the American railroads. 
It was the period, too, which witnessed the extinguishment of 
the government debt and the return to the various states, by the 
United States treasury, of more than thirty millions of surplus 
tevenues. It was also the period of settlement for a number of 
foreign difficulties, particularly between England and France, 
and a corresponding growth in the available investment and 
speculative capital of those two countries. Due to the high 
state of American credit, by reason of the liquidation of the 
national debt, large amounts of this English and French money 
sought an outlet in the United States. True, in 1834, a crisis 
was precipitated by the withdrawal of government funds from 
the United States Bank and a constriction of credit followed, 
but by the end of the year, when the local Exchange was 
launched, this adverse factor had been well discounted, and 
the country was preparing for the years 1835 and 1836, long 
known as the “golden age of borrowing.” 
The availability of capital was a great stimulant to the pio- 
neering spirit of all the Atlantic seaboard cities, and particularly 
of Boston. At the start, the available securities, as stated, were 
very limited, consisting largely of the stocks of banks and insur- 
ance companies, of the local mill and canal projects, of small 
mining enterprises, and of the various types of public debts; 
but, with the growing exploitation of national resources and 
industrial upbuilding, the supply was an expanding one. 
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