Fifty years in Wall Street
Western Union companies, were received by the Stock Exchange, announcing
an increase of stock by the directors. The market went off three points
before it was discovered that the letters were forgeries.
_April, 1874._—The President’s veto of the inflation bill unsettled
prices and caused depression. The bears raided the market, causing a
heavy decline, but a quick recovery followed.
_February, 1875._—Wabash went in the hands of a receiver.
_May, 1875._—A receiver for Erie was appointed.
_July, 1875._—Duncan, Sherman & Co. failed.
_August, 1875._—The Bank of California failed. Cashier Ralston committed
suicide.
_March, 1876._—Jay Gould made his famous attack on Western Union.
_April, 1876._—The National Bank of the State of New York failed.
_November, 1876._—Many savings banks failed.
_January, 1877._—Commodore Vanderbilt died on the 4th.
_February, 1877._—Jersey Central went into the hands of a receiver.
_July, 1877._—Great railway strikes; rioting and incendiarism in
Baltimore and Pittsburgh; losses $10,000,000. Over 100,000 laboring men
took part in the movement.
_January, 1878._—The Vanderbilt combination, including Michigan Central,
Lake Shore and Canada Southern, was made in this month.
_February, 1878._—The purchase of silver bullion by the Government to
the amount of $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 per month, and its coinage into
legal tender dollars, was ordered by Congress on the 28th.
_May, 1878._—Congress passed the Resumption Act.
_January, 1879._—Specie payments were resumed after the suspension which
took place soon after the opening of the war of the rebellion.
_April, 1879._—Gould and Field combined, and under their auspices the
St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern and Wabash Railways were consolidated.
Gould already had control of Union Pacific and Kansas Pacific, and
afterward secured control of Missouri Pacific and Denver & Rio Grande.
_June, 1879._—Western Union declared a scrip dividend of 17 per cent.
_August, 1879._—There was a serious tumble in prices in this month.
_October, 1879._—The stock market was very active in October and
November. The bull movement of the year was at its height and
transactions were so numerous that it was impossible to record them all.
The drop came in November.
_November, 1879._—William H. Vanderbilt sold 250,000 shares of New York
Central & Hudson River stock at 120 to a syndicate headed by J. S.
Morgan & Co., of London. Early in the following year the same syndicate
took 100,000 shares on the same terms.
_May, 1880._—Philadelphia & Reading Railway and Coal and Iron Company
failed. There was a flurry in the stock market in consequence.
_June, 1880._—A scrip dividend of 100 per cent. to the holders of Rock
Island stock on the purchase and consolidation of the Iowa Southern and
the Missouri Northern with Rock Island.—A leading German Wall Street
banking house, in view of the large exports of gold, offered a premium
of 1/2 of 1 per cent. for a call on $1,000,000 gold, the privilege to
extend for one year.
_November, 1880._—The Louisville & Nashville declared a 100 per cent.
stock dividend.—Western Union declined from 104-7/8, on November 22d, to
77½ on December 17th.—Jay Gould purchased most of the stock of the
Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad, in the following month a large
block of Iron Mountain and a majority of the International & Great
Northern.
_December, 1880._—Seats in the New York Stock Exchange sold at $25,000.
A great number of new securities were listed. So numerous were the
combinations, consolidations and extensions of railways that in many
cases the analogy with former periods was lost, and comparisons as to
earnings were of little value. In 1886 seats in the Exchange sold at
$35,000. In December, 1870, when speculation was stagnant and the market
was clear of all outsiders, seats sold at $3,000.—B. G. Arnold & Co.,
the largest coffee importing house of New York, suspended. They were the
principals in a combination to corner Java coffee, and met disaster in
the attempt.
_January, 1881._—Western Union, American Union and Atlantic & Pacific
consolidated. The former company declared a stock dividend of 38¼ per
cent. The capital stock was made $80,000,000.
_February, 1881._—Call loans were made at 1 per cent. per day on the
25th.
_May, 1881._—The Gould southwestern railway system was consolidated.
_July, 1881._—President Garfield was shot by Guiteau. The stock market
broke on the news of the shooting, and a panic was only prevented by the
intervention of Sunday and the National holiday on Monday.—The Oregon
war debt was paid.
_August, 1881._—There was heavy speculation in wheat and corn in Chicago
and New York. Money became scarce, and call loans were made at interest
and commission.
_September, 1881._—The Hannibal & St. Joseph corner.
_January, 1882._—The trunk line railway war of rates was settled.—Gould
and Huntington purchased a controlling interest in the St. Louis & San
Francisco Railway and half the ownership of the Atlantic & Pacific
Railway.
_February, 1882._—The market showed some animation early in 1882, but it
soon collapsed and became very weak. Bottom was touched on the 23d, the
recovery being based on talk of a settlement of the then existing trunk
line rate war.—Richmond & Danville plunged from 219 to 130 and a
semi-panic ensued on the Stock Exchange.
_March, 1882._—To allay reports that he was in financial straits, Mr.
Gould, on the 13th, displayed his wealth. He took from a tin box
$23,000,000 Western Union, $12,000,000 Missouri Pacific, $6,000,000
Manhattan Elevated, $2,000,000 Wabash common, and $10,000,000 bonds of
Metropolitan, New York Elevated and Wabash preferred. He offered to show
$30,000,000 additional railway stocks, but his visitors had seen enough.
_October, 1882._—A syndicate headed by the late W. H. Vanderbilt
purchased 124,800 shares of the common and 140,500 shares of the
preferred stock of the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railway at 13 and
37 respectively. This stock afterwards became the property of the Lake
Shore & Michigan Southern Railway.
_December, 1882._—The Municipal Bank of Shopin, Russia, failed with
liabilities of $60,000,000.—The railway war in the Northwest lasted from
September until December 15. On the announcement of the settlement the
market improved and the year closed with a better feeling all around.
_February, 1883._—Western Union absorbed Mutual Union by lease, the
rental being interest at 6 per cent. on $5,000,000 bonds and 6 per cent.
on $2,500,000 stock.
_March, 1883._—A block of Hannibal & St. Joseph stock was sold to
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. At the same time Wabash was leased to Iron
Mountain.—From the 19th until the close of the month there was great
depression. Money on call loaned at 4@25 per cent. The public was
heavily loaded with stocks.
_May, 1883._—Jersey Central was leased to Reading.
_June, 1883._—The National Petroleum Exchange and the New York Mining
Stock Exchange consolidated.—McGeoch, Everingham & Co., of Chicago,
failed in consequence of an unsuccessful attempt to corner the lard
market. The firm lost $6,000,000.—The movement against the circulation
of trade dollars at par was begun in Philadelphia and extended
throughout the country.
_July, 1883._—Western Union Telegraph operators struck for increased
pay. The strike lasted a month and ended in failure.
_October, 1883._—A notable feature of 1883 was the gigantic losses made
in speculative operations. The failures of McGeoch, of Chicago, and
Ranger, of Liverpool, were notorious instances, but thousands of private
individuals were squeezed out by the pressure.—In the summer and fall of
this year there had been a shrinkage in prices of stocks, when, in
October, the Northern Pacific Company announced a proposed issue of
$20,000,000 new bonds. This precipitated a heavy decline in nearly the
whole list. The market became largely oversold, when a sharp twist was
made in a number of stocks, and prices advanced with great rapidity.
Northern Pacific preferred jumped from 56 to 78½ within a few days, and
Oregon & Transcontinental went from 34½ to 51. Then Vanderbilt came into
the market and put up Michigan Central from 77 to 96½, and the other
Vanderbilt stocks to a less extent. Great depression followed this
manipulation.
_December, 1883._—The mercantile failures in 1883 amounted to
$173,000,000, against $81,000,000 in 1881.—The triple alliance between
Union Pacific, Rock Island and St. Paul was made.—Villard resigned from
Oregon & Transcontinental and Oregon Railway & Navigation.
_January, 1884._—Firmness in the market on the announcement that a
syndicate had made a large loan to Oregon & Transcontinental on the
pledge of its stocks. A quick move against the shorts caused a sharp
advance.—Henry Villard resigned the presidency of the Northern Pacific
Railroad.—John J. Cisco & Co., New York bankers, failed.—The surplus
reserve of the New York National banks was wiped out.—James R. Keene,
operator in wheat, failed.
_March, 1884._—There was a squeeze in New York Central. It sold up to
122.—Delaware, Lackawanna & Western was cornered, and its price was run
up to 133-1/8 regular and 139½ cash. S. V. White managed the pool.
Another move in the same stock was made later in the year. The pool
closed out at an average of 102. Then the stock dropped to 86¾.
_May 6, 1884._—The Marine Bank failed May 6th, wrecked by Grant & Ward.
Grant & Ward suspended two days later.,
_May, 1884._—During the panic the New York banks issued Clearing House
certificates to the extent of $24,915,000, of which $7,000,000 went to
the Metropolitan Bank. Similar certificates, to the amount of
$26,565,000, were issued in the panic of 1873.—The height of the panic
was reached on the 14th. The storm had been brewing for nearly three
years, but it was in no sense a commercial panic. Stock Exchange values
had shrunk to an unparalleled degree, and the crash was precipitated by
the developments regarding Grant & Ward, John C. Eno, Fish, of the
Marine Bank, and a few others. The disturbance was over by July 1.—The
Metropolitan Bank failed. Eno’s frauds on the Second National Bank
discovered. George I. Seney failed. The Atlantic Bank failed.
_June, 1884._—The greatest depression following the May panic was
reached. Large overselling led to a sharp rally.—Charles Francis Adams,
Jr., became president of the Union Pacific.
_August, 1884._—The Wall Street Bank failed.
_November, 1884._—The Metropolitan Bank, on May 15th had $11,294,000 in
deposits; on October 1st $1,338,000, and in November it went into
liquidation and retired from business.
_December, 1884._—The Lackawanna pool of 1884 closed out its holdings on
the 12th, and there being no further support to the market prices
declined, and the year closed with much depression.—The largest corn
crop ever grown in the United States was that of 1884. It was estimated
at 1,800,000,000 bushels.
_January, 1885._—Henry N. Smith, a noted bear operator, failed, and
carried down with him the brokerage firm of William Heath & Co.
_November, 1885._—The trunk lines came to an agreement and advanced
rates. This gave confidence, and an upward movement was started. The
Vanderbilts and the Grangers were the features of the market.
_December, 1885._—Texas Pacific stock collapsed. A receiver was
appointed for the property on the suit of the Missouri Pacific, a large
holder of its floating debt.—William H. Vanderbilt died suddenly on the
8th. The fact was not known down town until after business hours, but it
had a very unsettling influence. The next morning the market opened 1@3
points lower, but the bulls had combined to support prices, and bought
freely. In many instances prices were higher at the close than on the