Stock Brokers Reorganize: From Brown, Bruns & Company to Seneca D. Brown & Company

At the beginning of the 1898 tax period, Seneca D. Brown, Edwin G. Bruns and William Freudenstein were partners in the NYSE brokerage firm Brown, Bruns & Company.  Among them, only Edwin Bruns held a seat on the exchange.  By 1901, however, Brown, Bruns was no longer listed as a firm.  Edwin Bruns would still be listed as holding a seat, but without a firm. Meanwhile that year, Seneca D. Brown would create his own firm, with what appears to be his son, Frederick W. Brown.

The following memorandum of sale shows Brown Bruns still trading as of late 1900.  

300 shares of Southern Railway @ $13 3/8 sold to Eames & Moore on Nov 7, 1900

I have no sale memo for Seneca D. Brown's self-named firm, but the stamp below, likely used in 1901, has the initials of his firm for a cancel:

S.D.B & ?

SEP 30 ????

Frederick W. Brown held a seat on the NYSE by 1901 and was the Seneca D. Brown firm's seated partner.

I'm still looking for cancel evidence of Mr. Bruns and his trading activity.