Page:WALL STREET IN HISTORY.djvu/33

Rh established Wall Street as the central point of interest for leading business and professional men. It was an enterprise of magnitude for those primitive days, and was achieved through much tribulation. A curious and romantic chapter might be written on the chronicles of the three years while the subject was in agitation. In October, 1697, the jurors chosen for a certain trial raised quite a breeze by refusing to attend court, lest the old city hall "fall upon their heads." It was declared shaky and ready to tumble down. The matter was brought before the city authorities, and the mayor announced to the common council that he feared the building would give way under the pressure of the crowd that would presumably be in attendance at the coming trial—which was of some notorious criminals before the Supreme Court. The judges were seriously alarmed, and they also invited special attention to the weak character of the edifice. The result was that competent masons and carpenters were sent to examine and report, who decided that "with six studs and a plank, the building might be secured from any danger of falling." These supports were ordered, the trial went on, and no accident happened; but the scare had its effect for good. A committee was appointed the next January to take measures for selling the old, and building a new city hall. As soon as plans were matured, the city petitioned the governor and his council for the final demolition of the wall, saying: "Whereas the former line of fortifications that ranged along Wall Street from the East River to the North River, together with the bastions that were erected thereon (in 1692, when there was alarm about a French invasion), are fallen to decay and the encroachments of buildings which have been made adjacent thereto will render the same useless for the future, and the city proposing with all speed to build a new city hall at the end of one of the principal streets, fronting the above said line of fortifications, we pray His Excellency that the said fortifications be demolished, and the stones of the bastions be appropriated to building the said city hall."

The prayer was granted, and the corner-stone of the edifice was laid with much ceremony by the Mayor, David Provost, in the autumn of 1699. The structure was very nearly completed in 1700. The king's arms and the arms of Lord Bellamont, then governor, and of Nanfan, the lieutenant-governor, were carved on separate stones and placed in the front wall. In 1702, those of the two last named were ordered to be pulled down and broken by the marshal of the city, by the opposite political party, which had come into power; and the wall was filled up. In 1703, the cage, pillory, whipping-post, and stocks were removed from the water's edge to the upper end of Broad Street, and placed in full view of the inmates of the