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BroadstruckBroadstruck Posts: 30,497 ✭✭✭✭✭
1837 Merchant & Joint Stock Exchange, Wall Street, New York, HT-294 / Low-98.

On the HT-294 it states New York "Joint" Stock Exchange which was one of the most unusual business arrangements America has ever seen. "Tontine" was a legal device whereby survivors split an inheritance at some point specified and those unfortunate enough to die earlier got nothing. The Tontine Coffee House building at the corner of Wall and Wate Streets in New York was commenced in 1792 and completed in1794. It and a large amount of surrounding land was owned by an association of 203 city merchants and other prosperous persons who had subscribed at $200 per share which totaled the initial capital of $40,600 Share purchasers often named their children not themselves as the share owners. Meanwhile shareholders shared the income of the entity which owned a good portion of what was then the 2nd Ward bounded by Pine St., Nassau St., East River, and Gold and George St. The first five trustees for the 203 shareholders who meet every year in the Tontine Coffee House where John Broome, Gulian Verplanck, John Delafield, William Laight and John Watts. The Tontine was also a hotel and rented street shop space to certain merchants such as John R. D. Huggins the famed hairdresser who operated his shop these from 1794-1800. The largest room in the Tontine housed the Merchants Exchange 1794-1825 but it soon outgrew its quarters with bargaining being conducted in the bar. A supposedly fireproof Merchants Exchange building was erected 1827 on Wall Street but it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835. From 1797-1812 the Tontine Coffee House served lunch from 11AM to 1PM which included punch, lemonade, crackers, cheese, and codfish at their splendid bar for the merchants. Gulian C. Verplanck born in 1786 and William Bayard born in 1791 where original shareholders as children. . The Tontine scheme charter was signed Nov. 4, 1794 and was divided equally when the original 203 stock holders had been reduced by death to just 7.

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