RISE OF THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE 65
of this period, long before the security market became continu-
ous, is furnished by article 2 of the contemporary constitution :*
2. It shall be the duty of the President to call the stocks at the hour
that may be fixed upon by the Board, from time to time, as the season
mav require. . . .
From the scanty records which survive from these early
days, it does not appear that the Exchange had any even com-
paratively permanent home until 1827, when it rented a room
in the Merchants’ Exchange Building at Wall and Hanover
Streets. From this shelter the stock market was, however,
rudely evicted by the great fire of 1835. But after several
further wanderings, including the temporary occupation of a
hay-loft, the Board at length reoccupied in 1842 a large hall in
the new Merchants’ Exchange Building on the present site of
the National City Bank. (Plate 4.) Here it remained until
1854.
Beginnings of Railroad Development.—Meanwhile, no
sooner had our government established itself politically and
financially, than the great task of opening up and settling the
vast western areas of the country began. The keynote of this
westward colonizing movement was, of course, transportation.
At first carriage roads and then canals were constructed from
the Atlantic seaboard over the mountains into the fertile hinter-
land of the Mississippi Valley. In 1825 the completion of the
Erie Canal opened up a water route from New York into the
Great West and definitely transferred the commercial center of
the United States from Philadelphia to Manhattan. Neverthe-
less, it was not until the advent of the steam railroad that any-
thing like transportation in the modern sense of the term
became possible. The year 1829 saw the first train moved by
an American steam locomotive in this country, an experiment
fraught with the utmost consequence to the United States.
Serious initial difficulty was experienced in raising the large
sums of money needed to establish railroad systems. A solu-
3 Ibid. p. 64.
