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.  

New York Stock Brokers: Wayland Trask & Company or Walsh, Tailer & Company?

A check of the firms doing business at the New York Stock Exchange during the 1898 tax period included two firms that would have abbreviated their names "W.T. & Co.":

• Walsh, Tailer & Company
• Wayland Trask & Company

Wayland Trask was a broker who held a seat on the NYSE throughout the tax period.  Walsh, Tailer, however was comprised of several brokers, including Edward DeWitt Walsh and James B. Tailer.  Their firm did not trade throughout the tax period (they can be found in the 1900 and 1901 lists) and was not listed as a firm in the 1898 or 1902 lists.  Starting in 1902, however, most of the brokers from Walsh, Tailer moved to the new firm Tailer & Robinson.

Further below is found a couple of broker's memos for Walsh, Tailer, showing unambiguous CDS handstamps.  Immediately below is a cancel with only the initials "W. T. & CO.", plus "N. Y."  

W. T. & Co.

MAY

1

1901

N. Y.

Was the stamp above canceled by either Wayland Trask or Walsh, Tailer?  Since N.Y. is present in the cancel, the stamp likely was removed from a broker's memo; as the memos below show that Walsh, Tailer was using a CDS (the stamps above and below were canceled in May 1901), my bet is that the cancel above is that of Wayland Trask.  We'll need a Wayland Trask broker's memo for confirmation.

 

New York Stock Brokers: Allen, Sand & Company vs Alling, Secor & Company

As with the recently discussed firms Halsted & Hodges and Halsted & Hollister, the New York Stock Exchange firms Allen, Sand & Company and Alling, Secor & Company may create some confusion in cancel identification.  I've been reviewing my collection to check on accuracy and potential stories for this website, and early in the process I found a cancel where it should not be.

Immediately below is an inset scan of an album page with two "AS&Co" cancels, under the title Allen, Sand & Company.  I clearly mounted the green R173 first, assuming the AS&Co to stand for Allen, Sand.  Subsequently, the R184 with the fully written out "Allen Sand & Co" was added.  But as I paged forward and came to the firm Alling, Secor, I notice that the "A.S.&Co." cancels on the stamps on the Alling, Secor memorandum of sale were familiar, and realized they matched the cancel on the R173 on the Allen, Sand page.  So I've subsequently moved the stamp to the Alling, Secor page.

Here is what the page once looked like, with the stamp on the left misidentified:

The stamp close-up:

The stamps on the Alling, Secor memo close up:

The actual Alling, Secor memo in full:

And the cancels of the firm Alling, Reynolds & Company, which was the successor to Alling, Secor, clearly shown by the overstamp on the firm name on the memo:

Note the Alling, Reynolds cancels are the same at the Alling, Secor cancels, but with one letter altered.

New York Stock Brokers: Sorting Out Clarence M. Cohen; Cohen, Stiebel & Company and Cohen, Greene & Company

The stock broker Clarence M. Cohen first appears with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in 1901, and in that year lists of members of the exchange show him as a named partner of the firm Cohen, Stiebel & Company.  Cohen, Stiebel also shows up in the 1902 NYSE list.  However, the man had a much more complicated canceling career than indicated in the official lists.

First, there are stamps that are canceled "Clarence M. Cohen", without any mention of Cohen, Stiebel.  Second, Cohen, Stiebel used both regular handstamp cancels and also perfins, "CS&Co", presumably all in 1901 and 1902.  Third, and apparently in the final days of the 1898 tax period, likely in June 1902, Cohen appears in a new firm, Cohen, Greene & Company, which shows up in 1903 membership lists.  A Cohen, Greene cancel makes an appearance on the R191 strip of three below, along with the Cohen, Stiebel perfin.  

Clarence M. Cohen straight-line cancel

Cohen, Stiebel CDS from 1901

Cohen, Stiebel perfin, unknown date.

Confirmation that this perfin belongs to Cohen, Stiebel comes from the strip of threee below, that contains both the CS&Co perfin along with a cancel from Clarence Cohen's subsequent firm, Cohen, Greene.

In my earlier post on known perfins I did not include the CS&Co examples because I had not found them yet.  Here they are, with an unambiguous identification.

CS&Co perfin and COHEN, GREEN & CO handstamp

New York Stock Brokers: Halsted & Hodges vs Halsted & Hollister

There were two firms on Wall Street during the 1898-1902 tax period that had the initials H&H: Halsted & Hodges and Halsted & Hollister.  That both firms also had the name Halsted as the first name in the partnership occasionally complicates cancel identity.  For years I had this stamp with my Halsted & Hodges cancels:

Eventually I found a $2 version of this stamp with the box cancel complete, showing the full "Halsted & Hollister".  The stamp can be found further below mounted next to the one dollar stamp.

It turns out that Halsted & Hollister were not in business until 1901 or potentially late 1900, so their cancels don't show up till later in the tax period.  Halsted & Hodges, on the other hand, were in business across the tax period, from 1898 through 1902, and their cancels are more commonly found.  Their simpler block letter cancel is found on the broker's memo below:

The only Halsted & Hollister cancels I've found to date seem to be unique on Wall Street for the time, as they incorporate "PAID" in large outlined letters in the cancel:

Meanwhile, the Halsted & Hodges cancels are more familiar, with a double oval cancel early in the tax period giving way to the block letter cancel later.  The double oval is on the green R173 below:

New York Stock Brokers: The Bouvier Brothers

The Bouvier brothers, Michel Charles and John Vernou, were both brokers at the New York Stock Exchange during the 1898 tax period, and they both acquired their seats in 1869, making them some of the most senior members of the exchange by 1898.  

The cancels of Michel C. Bouvier come as straight line M. C. BOUVIER & CO, or as initials of the same.  They seem to be the most commonly found.  The only John Vernou Bouvier cancel I know of is shown on a sale memo below.

Memos courtesy of MSgt. David Thompson.

There were three John V. Bouviers; the one trading during the 1898 tax period was John V. Bouvier I.  John V. Bouvier III, aka "Black Jack", was the father of Jackie Kennedy.