Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: A Checklist

I'm not quite ready for prime time on this task.  As some of you may know, with support of David Thompson I have built a database of all the NYSE brokers and their firms during the 1898 tax period.  There is now a project underway to add a new sheet to the same spreadsheet for Pittsburgh broker cancels.  Subsequently I'll fill out the Chicago, Boston, Philly, and a few other exchange lists of brokers on new sheets in that same spreadsheet.  The database/spreadsheet will allow for initial and name searches for cancels on the 1898 dollar values, and should roll up a significant fraction of possible cancels on those stamps.  Stay tuned for an update, and if you are interested in this collecting tool, please write to me directly at the email address listed on the page.

The database looks like this:

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: The Search Continues Part 2

More missing Pittsburgh stock broker cancels.  Please let me know if you've seen cancels by any of these brokers.  All the below adverts were take from 1902 issues of the Pittsburgh financial newspaper Money.

Speer Brothers

Robert C. Hall

N. Holmes & Sons

Morris, Brown & Company

McElroy & Boyle

John N. O'Neil, Jr.

John D. Armstrong & Company

J. L. Penney

Humphries Miller

Henry Sproul & Company

Henry M. Long

Harry A. Martin

E. C. H. Schmidt

Crawford & Eberman

A. E. Masten & Company

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: The Search Continues Part 1

For several years I've ID'd stamps that were likely cancelled by Pittsburgh brokers and have squirreled them away on a special stock book page.  At the beginning of this month I decided to unpack them on this site, starting with the mysterious cancels of Wilson & Company.  Web postings were made interesting by the existence of a Pittsburgh financial newspaper called Money, that only began to publish in late 1902, but which secured the advertisements of a significant majority of the firms and members of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange during the 1898 tax period.  

The cropped advertisements inserted into this post, and the following post, represent firms in which cancels are still sought.  If you have seen cancels like that above for J. L. D. Speer & Company please let me know.  

Also sought:

Burns & Reilly

E. D. Gartner & Company.  Gartner's advert stretched across the top of two pages of the newspaper, so the two images above were part of the same advertisement.

George B. Hill & Company

George W. MacMullen & Company

Hoag & Grier

James Carothers & Company

Lytle & Davis

 

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: A. J. Lawrence & Company

A. J. L. & CO.

MAY

10

1900

from the Pittsburgh financial journal Money, November 8, 1902

from Money, October 25, 1902

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: R. J. Stoney, Jr.

R. J. STONEY, Jr.,

13

JUN

1901

PITTSBURGH, PA.

Cover of Moorhead's Quarterly Record of Pittsburgh Securities

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: Armstead B. Baxter

 

A. B. BAXTER,

OCT

12

1899

P'g'h, Pa.

Here's another businessman from Pittsburgh, listed in the Polk's & Dudley's guide under brokers, who doesn't show up as a member of the Pittsburgh stock exchange.  It is clear with just a bit of digging though that he was involved in the oil business and real estate, and was involved in some significant financial deals if he was using and cancelling $5 tax stamps.

Mr. Baxter shows up below, listed at 400 Wood Street.  Wood Street intersected in the Pittsburgh financial district with 4th Street:

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: George L. McFarlane

 

GEO. L. McFARLANE,

APR

14

1902

P'GH, PA.

George L. McFarlane, a member of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange,  kept his offices in Pittsburgh's Times building (pictured at right), located at 336 Fourth Avenue in Pittsburgh's financial district.  Unlike many of his colleagues, he appears not to have advertised in the publications for which we currently have access.  He did leave a a documented trail however, and appeared to have been one of Pittsburgh's more successful and wealthy brokers.  In 1902, the President of the exchange, W. I. Mustin, underwrote the costs of 30 exchange seats at $10,000 each to guarantee the purchase of Pittsburgh's Mechanics National Bank building for a permanent home for the stock exchange.  Mr. Mustin was consequently celebrated at a banquet that included George McFarlane as a guest; the banquet was documented in Pittsburgh's financial newspaper Money.  The article provides the menu for the banquet, which was in French, an apparent attempt by the gentlemen of Pittsburgh to be above the city's coal and coke smog.

My personal preference would be for the blue point oysters.  Maybe serve a dozen on the half-shell raw, followed by stew, then a half dozen Rockefeller and a half dozen Bienville, and then finally, oysters en brochette served with New Orleans made baguettes.  In French, oysters are known as huitres.

Picture from the September 27, 1902 edition of Money showing the former Mechanics National Bank and future Pittsburgh Stock Exchange building.

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: McClure & Way

McCLURE & WAY,

APR

2

1900

PITTSBURGH, PA

From the R. L. Polk & Company and R. L. Dudley's Pittsburgh, Allegheny City, and Allegheny County Business Directory of 1900.  McClure and Way are listed as located at #206 in the Times Building in Pittsburgh.  Frank E. McClure and Frederick Way were members of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange.

Note the advert at the top of the page for John A. Roebling's Sons' Company.   John Roebling died in 1869, but his son Washington would continue the work of his wire rope and cable company as the designer and builder of the Brooklyn Bridge among other iconic suspension bridges.

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: Preston, Watt & Schoyer

CANCELLED

FEB

7

1901

Preston, Watt & Schoyer

from the Pittsburgh financial journal Money, November 8, 1902

William H. Watt from Money, October 27, 1902

from The Successful American, October, 1900

 

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: W. H. Clarke & Company

W. H. CLARKE & CO.

DEC

4

1899

P'GH, PA.

W. H. Clarke doesn't show as a member of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange in the Moody's 1901 list of Exchange members.  However, the firm does make an appearnce in the list of Pittsburgh brokers in the 1900 R. L. Polk & Co. list of businesses for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County:

W. H. Clarke & Company is listed at 333 4th Avenue, in the heart of the Pittsburgh financial district in the R. L. Polk & Company and R. Dudley's Pittsburgh, Allegheny City, and Allegheny County Business Directory of 1900.  It is possible that Clarke dealt mostly in real estate or business other than stocks, but his use of these high value tax stamps indicates the firm's role in high finance of some sort.

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: John B. Barbour Jr.

 

J. B. Barbour, Jr.,

DEC

13

1901

P'gh. Pa.

from the Pittsburgh financial journal Money, November 29, 1902

from Money, October 11, 1902

Pittsburgh Stock Brokers: Samuel S. S. Pinkerton

 

S. S. PINKERTON

FEB

13

1900

PITTSBURG.

from the Pittsburgh financial newspaper Money, December 6, 1902

from The Successful American, 1900