Justice of the United States, and the Secretaries of the Treasury and War departments in their respective carriages, and in the order they are named."
A volume might easily be filled with the list of questions arising for adjustment while Wall Street was the seat of the new government. More complex, intricate or profound subjects, or those of greater importance to mankind never came before a body of legislators. The principles upon which alone the nation could survive were here determined, and the initiatory matters of interpretation settled. The blended thought and argumentation of philosophers, orators, jurists, and statesmen, immortalized the locality. And singularly enough, upon the very site of the edifice where the foundations were laid of our whole governmental scheme the marble structure has since been placed which guards the golden treasures of the Union, and Wall Street has been converted into the vital business center of the country, with its financial and commercial roots stretched to the remotest quarters of the globe.
The controversy over the site of the permanent seat of government created no little heart burning. The measure for funding the public debt was pending at the same time. In the end an agreement was reached through which Hamilton's system brought the great national debt into tangible shape, and the city of Washington was founded. Wall Street languished, sadly, after the President's six prancing horses with their painted hoofs were no more seen whirling the elaborately ornamented cream-colored state coach of the chief magistrate of the Union to the door of the City Hall.
But as its political and social glory waned its financial history began. In 1791 the Bank of New York, the pioneer of banking institutions in the city, received a charter from the State legislature for a period of twenty years, with a capital of $900,000. It was virtually established in 1784 under articles of association drawn by Hamilton. The first president was Gen. Alexander McDougall, and the second president Isaac Roosevelt; the first president under the charter was Gulian Verplanck, the uncle of Gulian C. Verplanck. Its presidents during nearly a century of existence have been in addition to those already named, Nicholas Gouverneur (1799), Herman Leroy (1802), Matthew Clarkson (1804), Charles Wilkes (1825), Cornelius Heyer (1832), John Oothout (1843), Anthony P. Halsey (1858), Charles P. Leverich (1863), Charles M. Fry (1876); its cashiers, William Seton (1791), Charles Wilkes (1794), Cornelius Heyer (1825), Anthony Halsey (1832), William B. Meeker (1856), Richard B. Ferris (1873).
The bank was located in the McEvers mansion in Wall Street corner
