The Cap of Liberty remained undisturbed in its place for almost two years. A newspaper of May 19, 1795, states that “the Liberty Cap having been removed from the Barr of the Tontine Coffee House by some unknown person, the ceremony of its re-establishment in the Coffee House took place yesterday afternoon. A well designed, carved Liberty Cap, suspended on the point of an American Tomahawk, and the flags of the Republics of America and France, attached on each side, formed a handsome figure.” A large gathering of people attended “the consecration of the emblem of Liberty,” and the meeting was highly entertained by numerous patriotic songs. Voluntary detachments from several of the Uniform Companies joined in the celebration.
On the 22d of May, only four days after being placed in the Coffee House, the French flag was removed. An attempt was made to recover it and arrest the person who took it down. A boat was dispatched in pursuit of the person who was supposed to have taken it, but it returned without success. Colonel Walter Bicker, in behalf of a number of citizens of New York, offered a reward of one hundred and fifty dollars for the capture of the thief who stole the French flag from the Coffee House, with what result is unknown.
New York Stock Exchange
An English traveler, who visited New York in 1794, writes that: “The Tontine Tavern and Coffee House is a handsome, large brick building; you ascend six or eight steps under a portico, into a large public room, which is the Stock Exchange of New York, where all bargains are made. Here are two books kept, as at Lloyd’s, of every ship’s arrival and clearing out. This house was built for the accommodation of the merchants, by Tontine shares of two hundred pounds each. It is kept by Mr. Hyde, formerly a woolen draper in London. You can lodge and board there at a common table, and you pay ten shillings currency a day, whether you dine out or not.”
As stated above, the Tontine Coffee House had become the Stock Exchange of New York. In the first directory of the city, published in 1786, there is only one stock-broker, Archibald Blair. On January 9, 1786, Archibald Blair announced that he “has a Broker’s Office and Commission Store at 16 Little Queen Street, where he buys and sells all kinds of public and state securities, also old continental money. He has for sale Jamaica rum, loaf sugar, bar iron, lumber and dry goods.” A few years later several announcements of such brokers are found in the newspapers, among others the following which appeared in the Daily Advertiser of December 9, 1790.
“Sworn Stock Broker’s Office.
No. 57 King Street.
The Subscriber, having opened an office for negociating the funds of the United States of America, has been duly qualified before the Mayor of the City, that he will truly and faithfully execute the duties of a
Stock Broker,
and that he will not directly or indirectly interest himself in any purchase or sale of the funds of the United States of America, on his own private account, for the term of six months from the date hereof.
The opinion of many respectable characters has confirmed his own ideas of the utility of establishing an office in this city upon the principles of a sworn Broker of Europe. The advantages of negociating through the medium of an agent no ways interested in purchases or sales on his own account, is too evident to every person of discernment to need any comment.