History of Wall Street

If you rewind history a few years back from the date of the Buttonwood Agreement, you would see that the first Dutch settlers of Manhattan had needed to find away to keep themselves safe from British pirates that were still roaming the waterways, Indian raiders and other threats, like wild animals that posed a real problem for the early colonists that were just trying to settle down. They decided that they would build a large stockade, or wall, to protect them from the dangers that came up from the river area. This wall stretched between the East and Hudson Rivers, and those who were travelling between them started to use it as a guideline for a path that would eventually become Wall Street.

As it was one of the first centers of trading and travel in the country, the merchants that met to form the eventual New York Stock Exchange decided to set up shop on Wall Street in 1817. The action was slow and very formal in the beginning, with the brokers of that time meeting in a rented room above the street and listening as the exchange president read out the stocks that were available for trading that day.