Bank of the Manhattan Company, Chartered 1799: A Progressive Commercial Bank

c, which was attributed to an inadequate and inferior water supply. Upon the assembling of the Legislature in 1799, an association of individuals, among whom Aaron Burr was the moving spirit, applied for a charter for the purpose of "supplying the City of New York with pure and wholesome water." With a capital of $2,000,000, the project was

n a rising ground pouring water from an urn which forms a river and terminates in a lake. On the exergue will be inscribed 'Seal of the Manhattan Company.'" There are nine banks now in existence whose history reaches back into the Eighteenth Century. Of these, two are in Massachusetts, two in Connecticut, one in Pennsylvania, one in Delaware, one in Maryland and two in New York. Corporate banking in New York began with the organization of the Bank of New York by Alexander Hamilton in 1784, which

ntry, has a substantial volume of bank deposits. But it was originally established as an "Office of Discount and Deposit," and is today primarily a commercial bank, seeking the active accounts of merchants and manufacturers and extending them accommodation in keeping with their credit and standing, for which the diversified c