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Dutch colonists construct a wooden stockade across lower Manhattan to protect the north side of their settlement against attacks by the British and Indians. By the turn of the 18th century, the British have taken over the colony and dismantled the barrier, turning it into a paved lane called Wall Street.
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A devastating fire, probably the work of colonial arsonists trying to disrupt the British occupation of the city during the American Revolution, destroys hundreds of structures in the vicinity of Wall Street.
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In his landmark Report on the Public Credit, the young nation’s first treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, proposes a method for the U.S. to handle federal and state debt by issuing government bonds, and establishes the principle of free trade for securities in the marketplace.
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Brokers meet in Philadelphia, where they buy and sell the first major issues of publicly-traded securities: $80 million in bonds issued by the federal government to pay off debt from the Revolutionary War.
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At the Merchants’ Coffee House at the corner of Wall and Water Streets, two dozen New York City stockbrokers and merchants sign the “Buttonwood Agreement,” named after a buttonwood tree under which business has been transacted in the past. The agreement lists rules for securities transactions.
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The locus for securities transactions in New York moves to the Tontine Coffee House, across the street from the Merchants’ Coffee House. Business is also transacted on the street.
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A group of New York brokers formally establish the New York Stock and Exchange Board, an organization that later will be renamed the New York Stock Exchange (N.Y.S.E.).
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The stock market reaches a trading volume of 5,000 shares a day.
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On a bitterly cold night, a fire starts in lower Manhattan. Raging for two days, it will destroy 700 buildings, including the Merchants’ Exchange.
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The N.Y.S.E. bars its members from conducting business in the streets.
