Industrial Company Cancels: Fox, Fultz & Company

 

FOX, FULTZ & CO.

APR

9

1901

Boston, Mass.

Fox, Fultz were purveyors of all kinds of glass and labware, in particular for pharmacists and drug makers.

Anheuser Busch and the St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company

Anheuser-Busch is arguably America's greatest brewer, despite the recent dust-up over Bud Light.  

Anheuser Busch, B. A.

FEB

27

1902

ST. LOUIS, MO.

Circular (or is it a pie- or bottle cap-shaped) date stamp

The St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company was a part of the Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser empire.

Adolphus Busch was the first American brewer to use pasteurization to keep beer fresh; the first to use mechanical refrigeration and refrigerated railroad cars, which he introduced in 1876; and the first to bottle beer extensively. By 1877, the company owned a fleet of 40 refrigerated railroad cars to transport beer. Expanding the company's distribution range led to increased demand for Anheuser products, and the company substantially expanded its facilities in St. Louis during the 1870s. The expansions led production to increase from 31,500 barrels in 1875 to more than 200,000 in 1881.To streamline the company's refrigerator car operations and achieve vertical integration, Busch established the St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company in 1878, which was charged with building, selling, and leasing refrigerator cars; by 1883, the company owned 200 cars, and by 1888 it owned 850.  

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: Drexel & Company

DREXEL & CO.

APR - 1899

PHILADELPHIA

Poor's Manual, 1886

 

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: George A. Huhn & Sons

GEO. A. HUHN & SONS BANKERS.

PHILA.

From The History of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, ed. Andrew Wallace Barnes:

The banking firm of George A. Huhn & Sons was founded in January, 1894, by George A. Huhn, and first opened for business at 143 South Fourth Street.  Associated with him in the business were his sons George A. Huhn Jr., and Samuel P. Huhn.  A general banking business, besides operations in the purchase and sale of investment securities, the issues of municipal or public service securities, stocks and bonds, was carried by the firm.

George Huhn maintained a seat at the New York Stock Exchange throughout the 1898 tax period.  

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: Toland Brothers

Toland Brothers & Company primarily traded on the Philadelphia exchange but senior partner E. D. Toland also held a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. The above memo, for shares in the "Philadelphia Company", was for a sale made on the Philadelphia Exchange. Unfortunately the cancel is not clear. 

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: Bioren & Company

 

BIOREN & CO.

From Who's Who in Philadelphia in Wartime, 1920

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: Robert Koons & Company

 

ROBT. KOONS,

OCT

15

1900

PHILADA.

from The Commercial & Financial Chronicle, April 2, 1892

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: Parrish & Company

 

Morris L. Parrish was a seated member of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.  He sold 100 shares of Philadelphia Electric to Sailer & Stevenson @ 5 7/8s

PARRISH & Co.

JAN

14

1901

PHILADA.

Princeton University maintains the Morris L. Parrish Collection of Victorian Novelists.

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: A. M. Friend & Company

A. M. Friend & Commpany brokers memo for 100 shares of Philadelphia Electric sold to Sailer & Stevenson @$6.00.  Sailer & Stevenson was a firm listed at the Philadelphia Exchange.

A. M. F. & CO.,

JAN 17 1901

Albert M. Friend held a seat on the Philadelphia Exchange.

 

Philadelphia Stock Brokers: Working Towards a Complete List

Much like the Boston Stock Exchange, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange was very active during the 1898 tax period and had as members firms which actively traded on more than one exchange in the United States, in particular in New York.  Some, like Thomas Biddle & Company, only traded in Philadelphia.  Either way, a collector might aspire to finding cancels from all the firms and brokers that traded in Philadelphia.  To assist the task I've included the list of brokers and firms at the Philadelphia exchange that was a part of the Moody's Manual in 1901.

Thos. A. Biddle & Co.

DEC

1

1898

PHILA.

I will begin to expand the database that has been build of brokers and firms at the New York Stock Exchange from 1898-1902 by adding the Philly, Boston and other brokers by putting them by city on different sheets in the Google Sheet.  If you are interested in access to the Google Sheet, please let me know at 1898revenues@gmail.com and I will send you a link to a read-only but searchable version.

Boston Stock Brokers: Thomas H. Perkins & Company

T. H. PERKINS & CO.

JUL 29 1898

BOSTON.

Thomas H. Perkins & Company was listed as a firm at the Boston Exchange in 1900 with Keith W. William as member of the firm and exchange.  Thomas Perkins built much of his wealth from slave and opium trading.  He died in 1854, long before the 1898 tax period, though his firm lived on.

From A Peoples Guide to Greater Boston: 

Thomas H. Perkins (1764-1854) was one of the Boston area’s wealthiest individuals during the 19th century. He and his brother were the namesakes of James and Thomas H. Perkins and Company, a Boston-based trading company established in 1792.

In 1799, Perkins purchased 53 acres of land on Heath and Warren Streets. Soon the property expanded to 70 acres. This was a time when a number of affluent Boston-area merchants were moving to the “countryside” of Brookline.

Known as “the Merchant Prince,” Thomas H. Perkins originally called his new landholding Brookline Farm. In the early years of Perkins’s ownership, it had domesticated animals, fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, the purpose of which was to provide food for his Boston establishments. Soon, Perkins had the house that already stood on the property torn down and a large, plantation-style summer house built in its place. Over the years, greenhouses and other buildings—including a gardener’s cottage, a guesthouse, and a billiards pavilion—were erected. Perkins had a team of gardeners, reportedly spending more than $10,000 per year (an amount, in 1825, worth about $320,000 today) to build and maintain a beautiful landscape that included ponds, winding paths, huge lawns, and flowers and shrubs from all over world.

What makes Thomas H. Perkins’s estate noteworthy—apart from its size and the wealth it reflects—is how the merchant trader accrued the money that paid for it. (James Perkins built a lavish summer home, which no longer exists, at Pinebank, overlooking Jamaica Pond, in Jamaica Plain.) Prior to the establishment of Perkins and Company, the two founders’ business activities included slave-trading in Haiti. Their new company, with its base of operations along Boston’s waterfront and its fleet of ships that transported goods around the world, gained much of its tremendous wealth from smuggling opium into China. In this fashion, Thomas H. Perkins contributed to widespread drug addiction in China and to the imperialist Opium Wars that devastated the country. At “home,” Perkins employed his wealth in a more beneficent manner to fund key local institutions—from the Boston Athenaeum to the Massachusetts General Hospital. Perkins also donated one of his homes (and his name) to what became known as the Perkins School for the Blind

Boston Stock Brokers: Gray, Dewey & Company

 

Gray, Dewey & Co.

DEC

11

1899

BOSTON.

The Gray, Dewey Offices at 8 Exchange Place in Boston

from The Boston Stock Exchange, 1893

by 1898, Frank Dewey held a seat on the Boston Exchange. 

From The Boston Stock Exchange, 1893

Boston Stockbrokers: Stackpole & Gay

 

S. & G.

BOSTON

JAN

27

1902

Henry Stackpole and Harry H. Gay held seats on the Boston Stock Exchange.

From The Boston Globe, December 17, 1915:

Boston Stock Brokers: Clement, Parker & Company

 

CLEMENT PARKER & CO.

MAR 25 1902

BOSTON.

Clement, Parker appear to have transacted exclusively on the Boston Exchange during the 1898 tax period.  Frederick W. Parker and Hazen Clement both held seats on the Boston Exchange.

Boston Stock Brokers: George S. Baldwin & Company

 

G. S. B. & CO.

MAR

4

1902

BOSTON.

The above stamps might have been used in the transfer of preferred shares of the Dominion Iron & Steel Company:

Boston Stock Brokers: Theodore Hastings

 

THEODORE HASTINGS

OCT 27 1898

BOSTON.

from United States Investor, April 29, 1911

Boston Stock Brokers: NYSE Brokers Listed as Primarily Boston-based in the NYSE 1898-1902 Database

Quite a large number of brokers trading on the NYSE also kept offices or traded in Boston.  In the case of the brokers listed below, Boston was their main base, while one of the firm's partners maintained a seat on the New York Exchange.  So this list is not complete with regard to firms that did business in both places, as firms like Brown Brothers and Blake Brothers, mentioned in recent posts, did not identify themselves as primarily Boston firms, and I did not classify them that way in the NYSE broker database.  

Whatever the case, this is another starting point for looking for Boston broker cancels, as David T and I have been methodically collecting the NYSE cancels for years.

The battleship stamps above are clearly canceled "Boston" rather than New York

Elisha D.	Bangs & Company	Boston
William	Bassett	Boston
John W.	Belches & Company	Boston
George C.	Brooks & Company	Boston
George F.	Brown Jr.	Boston
	Brown, Reilly & Company	Boston
	Chase & Barstow	Boston
	Curtis & Motley	Boston
	Curtis & Sanger	Boston
	Dillaway & Company	Boston
	Dillaway & Starr	Boston
	Downer & Company	Boston
Walter H.	Edgerly	Boston
	Edgerly & Crocker	Boston
	Emery & Tucker	Boston
	Estabrook & Company	Boston
	Hale & Company	Boston
	Hayden, Stone & Company	Boston
E. C.	Hodges & Company	Boston
	Jackson & Curtis	Boston
	Kidder, Peabody & Company	Boston
	Lee, Higginson & Company	Boston
E. E.	Leland & Company	Boston
S. D.	Loring & Son	Boston
F. S.	Mead & Company	Boston
E. Rollins	Morse & Brother	Boston
	Norman & Company	Boston
	Paine, Webber & Company	Boston
	Pearmain & Brooks	Boston
John	Pickering & Moseley	Boston
F. H.	Prince & Company	Boston
	Richardson, Hill & Company	Boston
	Schofield, Whicher & Company	Boston
	Sutton & Bowen	Boston
	Tower, Giddings & Company	Boston
	Towle & Fitzgerald	Boston
	Tucker, Anthony & Company	Boston
H. C.	Wainwright & Company	Boston
Andrew N.	Winslow	Boston

Boston Stock Brokers: Working Towards a Complete List

The Boston Stock Exchange

from The Boston Stock Exchange, with brief sketches of prominent brokers, bankers, banks and moneyed institutions of Boston, 1893

 

This site has focused on firms canceling stamps that were based at the New York Stock Exchange with the occasional detour.  One detour was to the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange back in June of 2024.  With the previous post on ambiguous "BB&Co" cancels that likely involved the Boston Stock Exchange, I thought it time to start looking at Boston Exchange cancels, though I have yet to make a definitive list of the possible brokers, or even really study who the brokers were during the tax period.  Today will begin an effort to get a handle on what was happening in Boston between 1898 and 1902.

A quick check of Boston canceled stamps among the 1898 dollar values in my collection turned up several Boston Stock Exchange possibilities, including the stamp below:

  

J. & C.

JUL

31

1900

BOSTON

Turns out this cancel likely belongs to the brokerage firm Jackson & Curtis.  Charles Jackson and Lawrence Curtis are each listed as members of the Boston Stock Exchange in 1901with their firm Jackson & Curtis.  They can be found in the list below that comes from the 1901 edition of Moody's Manual, while they are also listed as trading on the NYSE with Charles Jackson as the member:

As with the NYSE, Moody's published the membership lists for the Boston Exchange for 1900, 1901 and 1902.  But it means that we're missing 1898 and 1899, which are gaps that need an answer.  Turns out that at least one book available online provides some help, thought it is not ideal.  An 1893 hagiography of the exchange and its members provides a complete list, and a quick scan of my stamps shows at least one broker that shows up in this 1893 list that was no longer in the exchange by 1900.  

Whatever the case, there is enough data to get started to organize Boston brokers.  You can find the following lists by clicking on the links:

• 1900 Moody's Manual
• 1901 Moody's Manual
• 1902 Moody's Manual

New York Stock Brokers: "BB & CO": Brown Brothers & Co., Brown, Bruns & Co., or Blake Brothers & Co.?

Identical corporate initials can confound the identification of firms that used 1898 revenue stamps, as the cases of H&H and AS&Co have demonstrated.  In the case today, we consider B.B & Co on the 1898 dollar values, likely used to pay taxes on stock trades.  At least three firms with these initials traded stocks on the NYSE during the 1898 tax period, and it is certain that all three of them used their initials to cancel documentary stamps.  The best known of the two was Brown Brothers & Company, a multinational firm with offices trading on the exchanges in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore.  Blake Brothers & Company also had members with seats in New York and Boston, while  Brown, Bruns & Company, appears to have traded only on the NYSE.  Brown Brothers would, through a merger, become Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the best known Wall Street firms of the 20th century.

A stock sale memo from Brown, Bruns & Company:  300 shares of a +$13 stock were sold, requiring $6 worth of documentary revenue stamps.  6 copies of Scott R182 were used, each with the same cancel: B. B. & CO.  Below is a single stamp from that memo:

B. B. & CO.

NOV  7  1900

A prominent B. B. & CO. cancel is used on the stamp above, much like that on the copy of R174 below:

B. B. & CO.

JAN XX 1899

BOSTON

We know the R182 stamp with the BB cancel is from Brown Bruns as the stamp is tied to a Brown Bruns memo of sale.  The $3 stamp is a bit trickier without the underlying document.  However, the cancel includes "BOSTON", indicating the stamp was cancelled in that city, where Brown Brothers and Blake Brothers had members with seats on the exchange there. 

I have mounted the R174 on page labeled Brown Brothers, but that could be in error.  This may be a Blake Brothers cancel.  

So we are left for now without any sort of evidence-basis possibility for the identity of the cancel above.  The two BB&Co cancels below show up occasionally.  The top two are in my collection:

Meanwhile, David Thompson sent the following scan awhile back:          

Brown Bruns ceased to exist and stopped trading by later 1990 or early 1901, making it less likely that the cancels on the four stamps above came from that firm.  My guess would be that one of the cancel types above belong to Brown Brothers, and the other to Blake Brothers.  Someday sale memoranda might show up that provide confirmation.

The 1905 year on the second stamp was clearly caused by an incorrect adjustment of the year date slug.