History of the city of New York, 1609-1909, Part 43

Author: Leonard, John William, 1849-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, The Journal of commerce and commercial bulletin
Number of Pages: 962

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HISTORY OF NEW YORK

wampum was strung upon a thread, with a paper attached certifying the value of the wampum so strung. Between ten shillings and £5, loose wampum could be used, wrapped in paper packages containing not more than ten guil- ders or five shillings worth of wampum, in each paper, the value indorsed on the package and signed by the person paying. Even as late as October, 1671, an act of Assembly speaks of eight stivers in wampum as equal to two silver twopences, and four stivers as equal to one silver penny.

The persistence of wampum as currency was due to the fact that the Indians would not accept coin, and beaver remained an important article of commerce, which could only be procured from the Indians by the use of wam- pum as currency, or by merchandise as barter. It was also a great conven- ience to the settlers, clumsy as it was, for there was practically no money in the country in the earlier days, and at no time before the Revolution was there an adequate supply of coin for the purposes of commerce. So besides wampum, beaver skins were current at fixed prices, and the first order men- tioning the currency of the province after the English occupancy was given by Governor Richard Nicolls, in February, 1665, which said: "The Payments for goods imported shall be paid as formerly in Bever Pay at 8 guilders or 13sh. 4d. a Bever." After being the principal currency of the country for approximately a century, wampum and beaver were finally deposed from their monetary elevation and various coins came into general use.

With the merchants coin was always acceptable. The absence of a set- tled currency, or an established coinage, was a great disadvantage, and while the supply was scant, it represented practically all nations of the world. One of the popular coins was the "Joachimsthaler," a coin issued by the Counts of Schlick, at the village of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, under authority of the emperor, Charles V, these coins being noted for their constancy as to weight and fineness, being of 451 grains, troy weight, and called by the Dutch "daalder," from whence came the English word "dollar," used for the same coin. These coins became very popular in all countries because their uni- formity of weight and quality kept their value steady, and Charles V, who was also king of Spain, caused coins to be struck in the mint at Seville, contain- ing four hundred grains of fine silver, to be the equivalent of eight Spanish reals. These coins, first known as "Seville pieces of eight," soon also came to be known, because of the design of two columns or "Pillars of Hercules," as "pillar dollars," and later, more commonly, as "milled pieces," or "Spanish milled dollars." The two pillars and a scroll forming the letter "s" upon these coins, were the origin of the "$," which became the commercial sign for the piece of eight, and afterward for the United States dollar. The Spanish milled dollar was the most widely circulated coin of the later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. It was current all over South and Central America,

435

THE NEW YORK CUSTOM HOUSE

Corpright. 1907- WURTS DROS.Photo N.Y.

Cass Gilbert, Architect

CUSTOM HOUSE

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HISTORY OF NEW YORK

the islands of the Spanish Main, the colonies of North America, and the Orient, and so large was the coinage that few dates of the Spanish silver pieces are to this day rare enough to make them command a premium with the coin collectors.

After the Netherlands threw off the Spanish yoke there was coined in Holland a dollar of less value, which, from the device upon it, became known as the "lion dollar." A larger coin, a crown, issued by the Dutch province of Guelderland for trade in the East, bore a poorly executed copy of the same device, so crude that many mistook the lion for a dog, and it became popu- larly known as a "dog dollar." It weighed 462 grains. Other coins came into the colony, including Peruvian and Mexican dollars, all kinds of Euro- pean coins, and, after the English capture, the English pounds, shillings and pence became standard. Dutch traders in the city and province kept their accounts in guilders, but when they supplied the government with goods they usually expressed the values in pounds.

When pirates began to make New York their home port, and especially during the term of Governor Fletcher, there was a large addition to the cur- rency in the shape of Arabian gold. With the great diversity of coins was a disparity of valuation in the several colonies; and Governor Cornbury, in writing to the home authorities in England, complained that the piece of eight, weighing seventeen pennyweights, went for six shillings sixpence in New York and for seven shillings sixpence at Philadelphia, "so that no heavy money is to be found here."

The coinage of money was regarded by England and all other nations as a sovereign prerogative, and the right of setting and ascertaining the rates of foreign coins in the royal provinces in America was claimed by Parlia- ment, which, in 1704, passed an act providing that in those provinces, after January 1, 1705, no "Seville, pillar or Mexican" dollar should pass over six shillings, current money, and that Peru pieces, dollars or other foreign silver coins, of whatever weight or alloy should be regulated according to weight and fineness in proportion to the rate fixed for the Seville pieces. This regu- lation proved disastrous to the trade of New York, for Pennsylvania, which was a proprietary colony, still valued the milled dollar at seven shillings six- pence and lighter money in proportion, so that New York was soon drained of its coins. Lord Cornbury and the Council being petitioned by the mer- chants, and finding their representations true, suspended the operation of the act and trade revived, but another thing which greatly hindered exchanges was the custom, very prevalent in the neighboring colonies, of clipping and fil- ing foreign coins.

The Assembly tried to remedy matters by passing an act, October 8, 1708, fixing the value of pillar or Mexican dollars, not clipped or defaced, at

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COINS IN COLONIAL NEW YORK

eight shillings, Spanish reals at ninepence each, double reals at eighteen pence and half reals at fourpence-half-penny; all defaced coins of these mintages at eight shillings an ounce; Peru whole and half pieces of eight at six shillings eightpence per ounce and lion dol- lars, not defaced, at five shillings sixpence. This act, which required the royal assent to be valid, was vetoed, and the Lords of Trade, under an act of the British Parlia- ment, issued a proclamation that the ounce troy should not pass for more than six shillings and ten- pence farthing. The disputes con- tinued, but violations of the restric- tions were very common. The matters were finally adjusted by a decision of the New York Court of Chancery, which referred the mat- ter to Cadwallader Colden as mas- ter, and adopted a report submitted by him December II, 1724, fixing the rates of the foreign coins cur- rent in New York at six shillings for Seville, pillar and Mexican dol- lars, and other coins at proportion- ate rates.

The Spanish real, valued at fourpence-half-penny English, was for a long time the smallest coin current. Governor Hunter called attention to the need of copper coins in 1715. In 1722, William Wood, of Wolverhampton, Eng- land, having by bribery of the Duchess of Kendal, one of the mis- tresses of George I, secured a royal license to do so, began the coinage

FRESERSE

THE METROPOLITAN BUILDING

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HISTORY OF NEW YORK

of tokens of a composition he had invented, of which twenty ounces avoir- dupois were to contain one pennyweight troy of virgin silver, fifteen ounces avoirdupois of fine brass and the remainder "linck" (spelter). He made half- pence, pence and twopences of this composition, for Ireland, but such disturb- ance was created there that the privilege for Ireland was recalled in 1725. Wood continued, however, to make for America his "Rosa Americana" pen- nies, half-pence and farthings of the same composition until 1733, when he quit coining them because there was no demand for them. They were well made, but the quality of the metal was so base that they met with little favor, and Wood was accused of "having the conscience to make thirteen shillings out of a pound of brass.'

Merchants imported regular copper coins from England, which passed current at twice their English value, a half-penny passing for a penny, and as this made the importation profitable, the copper half-pence became very plentiful. In 1838 the Assembly passed a law to prevent the further impor- tation of copper money, which made it a felony to bring into the colony more than ten shillings at a time. This law did not prevent importation, for the copper coins continued to increase in number until, in 1754, the merchants agreed not to receive or pass copper half-pence at any other rate than four- teen to the shilling. A mob assembled in protest against this action and a riot seemed imminent, but prompt action of the authorities prevented disorder.

Numerous private tokens were current from time to time, including, as one of the first, a coin with an eagle on one side and on the other the words "New Yorke in America," said to have been struck in Holland about 1705, in lead, brass and tin. Copper tokens made in New Jersey were in use at vari- ous times, many pieces which were made of baser metal to imitate British half- pence, and other worthless tokens, made to imitate the New Jersey coppers.

Bills of credit issued by the Province of New York, for various purposes, entered into the currency during the administration of Governor Cornbury and later governors, but there were many counterfeits, until after the conviction and execution of Owen Sullivan for the offense in 1754. In 1771 the colony issued forty-four thousand bills, in denominations from ten shillings to ten pounds, printed by Hugh Gaine, which was the last colonial issue. The signers of this issue were Theophylact Bache, Samuel Verplanck, Henry Holland and Walter Franklin. Although these bills contained the legend, " 'Tis death to counterfeit," many counterfeits did, in fact, appear. During the Revolutionary War and afterward issues of New York State bills were made in 1776, 1781 and 1786.

During the Revolution, New York City was for the greater part under English occupancy, and therefore had little to do with the Continental "shin- plaster" currency, which collapsed entirely.

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COMMERCE INN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

After the treaty of peace with England there were numerous copper tokens issued by private parties, some of them very well executed, which passed current until such time as the national mint should be in operation.

There was an issue of corporation notes, dated December 26, 1814, to supply the need for small change, in denominations of one, four, six, nine and twelve and one-half cents.

"Hard-times tokens," which passed as cents, were issued in several varie- ties in 1835, and war tokens of several hundred styles, appearing in the first years of the Civil War, also passed as cents to a considerable extent.

Though the money of New Netherland and New York was, as we have seen, an uncertain and fluctuating quantity, and an awkward medium of exchange, there was always an active trade going on except so far as the interference of the home authorities (Dutch and English) interposed re- strictions. Even these did not always restrain, as we have seen in the accounts of piracy and illicit trade under Fletcher and the other predecessors of the Earl of Bellomont, and even his vigorous efforts to prevent these prac- tices did not entirely end them.

Statistics of trade under the Dutch occupation are meager. It was stated that during the administration of Wouter van Twiller the exports to the Netherlands reached 134,953 florins ($53,981), representing the value of 14,891 beavers and 1413 otters. There was from the first an inhibition of foreign trade for the merchants of New Amsterdam, but there was much smuggling, and the Chamber of Accounts reported to the West India Com- pany a net loss to its revenues of five hundred and fifty thousand guilders.

In 1651 a discrimination of sixteen per cent. duty was ordered on all importations from English-American colonies into New Amsterdam. while exports from thence to those colonies were free of duty.

Flour was the first manufactured product of importance in the city. There was a town windmill in what is now Battery Park in Stuyvesant's time, and in 1678 Andros reported that about sixty thousand bushels of wheat were yearly exported. He also said that the English Acts of Trade and Navigation were not very well observed in the colonies for lack of means of enforcement.

There had been a considerable growth in trade in 1686, when Governor Dongan reported to the home government that New York and Albany lived wholly upon the trade with the Indians, England and the West Indies. The Indian trade, which had been at a low ebb when Andros reported, the French having secured its diversion to Canada, had revived under the ar- rangements which Dongan had wisely made with the Indians, which had induced them to bring their commodities to Albany. The Seneca Indians had brought ten thousand beaver skins there in 1685. There was a consid-

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HISTORY OF NEW YORK

HILLIARD BVILDING

VIEW FROM

EARJOHN ST.

HILLIARD BUILDING

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HINDRANCES TO NEW YORK'S TRADE

erable export of "flour, bread, pease, pork and sometimes horses," to the West Indies, the returns from there being chiefly rum and molasses. To England the shipments were chiefly beaver and other skins, whale oil and some tobacco. On all products from Europe or the West Indies (except such part of the latter where the commodity was produced) which did not come direct from England, a customs duty of ten per cent. was collected.

Besides regular trade, privateering added to the gains of New York mer- chants, nearly all of whom were interested in one or more privateer ventures. During King William's War many of the old privateers had become pirates and buccaneers. They not only frequented New York and disposed of their booty here, but, being liberal spenders and givers, they met with every encouragement, including, in some cases, the personal friendship of Governor Fletcher. Bellomont, his successor, did much to do away with this scandal, greatly to the disgust of the merchants whose gains were reduced.

Among the instructions to Bellomont was one not to permit the other colonies to obstruct the trade of New York and Albany, or any innovations within the "river of New York," nor any goods to pass up that river without having paid duties at New York. He was also instructed to give due encouragement to the Royal African Company of England, which was a slave- trading company.

A monopoly of the bolting of flour and the baking of bread for export was given to a few leading merchants of New York, and retained by them over the strenuous objections of other towns in the province until the Assem- bly passed an act destroying the monopoly in 1694.

The trade of New York was further decreased after the beginning of Queen Anne's War with France and Spain, which lasted from 1702 to 1713, as it not only cut off the trade with France, Spain and Flanders, but also with the Spanish West Indies, which had been a large consumer of flour made in New York. Vessels bound from this port were in some cases seized by French privateers when scarcely out of sight of Sandy Hook, and the entire period of the war was one of reduced trade. The one branch of busi- ness which improved during that period was that in slaves, a slave market having been opened at the foot of Wall Street in 1710.

Successive governors had tried to impress upon the Lords of Trade the fact that, if encouraged, the Province of New York could supply the mother country with all kinds of naval stores, such as pitch, tar, resin, turpentine, flax and hemp, as well as with masts and timbers of all sizes, of excellent quality, but could get no encouragement until after the Peace of Utrecht, in March, 1713. Queen Anne died the following year and General Robert Hun- ter, then governor, again raised the question about naval stores, which re- sulted, not long after, in a considerable trade in those commodities, following

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HISTORY OF NEW YORK

the immigration of the Palatines, who engaged in that industry as related in a previous chapter.

Massachusetts had far outstripped New York in population, and the trade of Boston was very much larger than that of the City of New York, but dur- ing Hunter's time there was a considerable increase of industry and trade, especially in shipbuilding, as it was during this period that William Walton established his large shipyards, which were located on the East River, above what is now the foot of Catharine Street. A report made by Governor Hun- ter, in 1720, speaks of a large trade in cargoes to England of tar, whale oil, and whalebone, as well as many other commodities, while flour, pork and other provisions were shipped to the West Indies, and horses to Surinam, Cura- çoa and St. Thomas; but in spite of these new departments of trade the average of export to Great Britain for three years had amounted to only about £50,000 a year, while the imports from there were £16,000, the balance of trade being £34,000 in favor of New York. The vessels belonging in New York were small, and were mostly engaged in coasting and West Indian trade, and the shipping interest of New York, at that time, was less than that of any other of the colonies except Pennsylvania.

The commerce improved after that, both in the quantity of commodities sold and the places included in the trade of the city. A report of trade made by Governor Clarke showed, in addition to the usual imports and ex- ports, a trade to Ireland in flaxseed and staves, and imports from there of linen canvas, while from the British colonies and West Indies were received rum, wine, lime, snuff, sulphur, straw plait, hides, deerskins, cochineal, negroes, mahogany and ebony. Exports to Continental Europe included grain, hides, elk and deerskins, ox-hams, Spanish snuff, logwood, indigo, cocoanut, foreign produce and lumber. From Europe and the English foreign settle- ments in America they received salt; from Africa, negroes (though less than formerly), and from Canary Islands and Madeira, wines. New York received . from the north and south parts of the American continent cider, oil, blubber, hops, flaxseed, flax, bricks, sealskins, wrought tin, and brasiery. Governor Clarke reported a falling off of imports from foreign plantations of molasses, rum and sugar, because of the duties laid on those commodities by the British sugar acts of 1733, amounting to four shillings per hundred weight on sugar, sixpence per gallon on molasses and syrups, and ninepence per gallon on rum. There were, however, imports from the foreign plantations of snuff, Spanish tobacco, indigo, logwood and other dye stuffs, cocoanuts, cotton and wool. There were exports of grain, beeswax and staves to Madeira and the Azores; to the English districts north and south of the Province of New York and the West Indies, provisions, chocolate, lumber and European goods; and to the neutral ports, St. Thomas, Curaçoa and Surinam, provisions, lumber and

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COMMERCIAL GROWTH OF THE CITY

horses with provender. This was a longer list of commercial exchanges than in any previous report. The same report said that the country people made their own homespun of wool and flax, and that there were manufactures of linseed oil, hats made of beaver fur, lampblack, and also reported establish- ments engaged in the industries of sugar-baking and refining, and two rum distilleries. These later institutions had increased to three in 1746, and to six in 1749, in which year there is also a report of the shipping registered in New York as 157 vessels, aggregating 6406 tons, navigated by 1228 seamen. There was a steady, though not very rapid, increase of trade for several years, until the passage of the Stamp Act, causing the nonimportation agreements of 1765, the effects of which, commercially and politically, have been fully set forth in a previous chapter.

During the Revolutionary period, as New York was for nearly the whole time in the hands of the British, the trade of the city was chiefly in the im- porting and selling of supplies for the use of its inhabitants and of the Brit- ish Army, which had headquarters here; but there was very little traffic with up-river points, which were held nearly the whole time by the Patriot Army.

After the treaty of peace with England, New York began to develop its trade relations upon broader lines, freed from hampering restrictions, royal decrees, and navigation acts. There was a period during the war between England and France when the English Orders in Council, and the decrees of Napoleon, laid restrictions upon American trade with those countries; and the embargoes laid by Madison and Jefferson upon commerce also affected the trade in New York very seriously, as also did the acts of Great Britain in connection with the impressment of American seamen. But after the War of 1812 there was a rapid revival in the commerce of New York, to which the introduction of steam navigation, coastwise and oceanward, greatly contrib- uted. The completion of the Erie Canal added enormously to the importance of New York as a commercial centre, and by the third decade of the Nine- teenth Century, New York had passed Philadelphia and Boston and taken first place as a centre of commerce and navigation in the United States. In the fourth and fifth decades of the century came the development of the clip- per ship, in which America outstripped the world, and extended the commerce of New York into all seas.

In another place in this volume the effect of the Civil War upon the mari- time commerce of New York has been mentioned, and after the war New York never regained the place it had held as the registry port of ships engaged in foreign trade. But its commerce has steadily increased, although that with foreign countries is almost entirely carried on in foreign bottoms. The coastwise trade, however, which by law is restricted to vessels flying the American flag, has increased steadily.

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HISTORY OF NEW YORK

The total merchandise imports of the United States for 1909, free and dutiable, aggregated a value of $1,311,920,224, and of exports $1,638,355,593. Of this total, $779,308,944 imports were received at, and $607,239,481 exports were shipped from the port of New York.

With the commercial supremacy of the city came also financial leader- ship, in which the precedence in New York on the American continent has long been indisputable, and its place in the financial world is second only to that of London. It would be impossible, within the scope of this history, to go with any pretense at detail into the facts connected with the development of New York's financial superiority. The metropolitan character of the city is in no direction more definitely fixed than in its preeminent rank as a finan- cial and banking centre.

This might be illustrated in many ways, but perhaps in nothing more strongly than by a statement of comparative exchanges of the clearing houses of United States cities, the total clearings of all the clearing house cities in the country for the year 1909 having been $158,559,487,500, while those for New York alone aggregated $99,257,662,400, or about two-thirds of the whole. Compared with the three next largest clearing house returns, the amount for Chicago, which stood second, was $13,413,973,100; Boston, $8,232,992,100; and Philadelphia, $6,615, 109,300.

The New York Stock Exchange bears a relation of superiority in volume of business to the exchanges of other cities in America comparable to that shown in clearing house returns. There was established in 1792 a loose organization of twenty-four brokers of New York, who met under a cotton- wood tree opposite 60 Wall Street and signed an agreement, the original of which is still extant, regulating rates of commission. The brokers thus or- ganized held meetings irregularly at the Tontine Coffee House, at Wall and Water Streets, and it was not until 1817 that a more formal organization, as the New York Stock Exchange, was made. The first meeting place of the board was in the Merchants' Exchange, occupying a site which afterward became that of the New York Custom House, and is now covered by the building of the City National Bank of New York. It moved to Beaver and Wall Streets in 1853, and about 1865 to a building which occupied the site now covered by the handsome marble structure which is now its home. It is a voluntary association and is not even incorporated. The number of mem- bers is about eleven hundred, and the memberships, technically designated "seats," pass by sale and transfer from a member or his legal representative in case of decease. The seats in the exchange have sold as high as $95,000. Its transactions are of enormous volume, covering all principal stocks and securities. For the year 1909 the amount of stocks handled on the exchange was 216,287,906 shares, and of bonds $1,309,429,000.

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History of the city of New York, 1609-1909, Part 43

Author: Leonard, John William, 1849- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: New York, The Journal of commerce and commercial bulletin Number of Pages: 962

Author: Leonard, John William, 1849-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, The Journal of commerce and commercial bulletin
Number of Pages: 962