Within the first thirty-year history of the NYSE, hundreds of banks blossomed throughout colonial America. The majority of them were located from Connecticut down the Atlantic coast to Washington, along the coast around New Orleans, and along the eastern shores of the Great Lakes. A few banks bravely entered "Indian Territory" west of the Allegheny Mountains.

Most banks evolved in these areas due to transportation and population drifts and developments following the War of 1812. The British were at our throats again, and struggles ensued along the very spots where banks were established by 1830.

Many of the men who fought in the latter part of the Revolutionary War fought alongside their sons in the War of 1812. These men were hurting financially, as President Jefferson had stopped all trade outside our borders by 1807. By 1812 war was declared, and it didn't end until 1815.

Although colonists weren't successful in gaining Canadian soil, they repelled the British at the mouth of the Mississippi and kept New Orleans. The end of this war signaled safe landings for more immigrants from Europe.

Cora's Londonderry County ancestors arrived in New York City in 1830. Thomas Hamilton was a laborer, and he soon moved his new family down to Baltimore. His family hooked up with Hosea Reynolds' family, Scottish ancestors who were involved in blacksmithing and shoemaking. Carriage makers, smithers, pudlers*, and leather manufacturers found their fortunes in this bustling area.

Still, there wasn't much participation in the market. The lowest volume day in the history of the NYSE was March 16, 1830, when 31 shares were traded. Commodity trades were still key, especially in the south. New canals and roads in southern states enabled goods to be transported to seaside ports. Money flowed freely and southerners finally felt the wealth. The descendents of the German immigrant in Rockbridge County, Virginia witnessed large land grants and cash gifts from their father's will in the late 1830s.

Migrations developed south and west to Mississippi and Texas. At least one ancestor found he could make a healthy living as a Baptist minister. He gathered his family from a Virginia farm and moved southward, solidifying hundreds of marriages along the way. By 1845, brokers set up offices near banks so they could communicate with the NYSE by telegraph and have able access to money.

Cora's Welsh relations arrived from Caernarvon, northern Wales, in the early 1850's. Robert Jones and kin were quarrymen, and they mostly gathered in the Harford County, Maryland, and York County, Pennsylvania areas. There were banks and brokers aplenty in this area; however, most "slaters" worked for wages, and these Welsh felt land ownership was far more important than ownership of a portfolio.

By 1859, wealthy southern politicians fed their newly flush constituents a bill of revolution, and they bit. Civil War began, and - before the Welsh had time to settle - they were sending sons to fight for the north. A Baptist minister and various farmers sent sons to fight for the south. One Irish laborer lost his only son at The Wilderness. The Scottish shoemaker's family had enough wealth to supply officers, but that ranking didn't help three of his sons. One of them died at Weldon Railroad. The southern losses are too numerous to mention. Disease, as well as any bullet, wiped out scores of soldiers and civilians on both sides.

Between 1860 and 1865, many banks, courthouses, and records contained within were burned throughout Virginia. Land and buildings were decimated as far north as Pennsylvania. The children who inherited that land in Rockbridge County saw its value dwindle to pennies.

Another line of Cora's ancestors watched from their small farm homes in Appomattox, Virginia as Grant galloped in to meet Lee at the home of their neighbor, Mr. McLean. This sigh of southern surrender in April 1865, and the expansion of the railroad over the next decade spelled doom for this little stagecoach connection between Farmville and Lynchburg.

Sir Henry Bessemer in England beat out a second-generation Irish boy in Kentucky, William Kelly, with his new method of steel production in the early 1860s. Although Kelly created the method first, Bessemer had the resources to drive his invention home. The birth of the Bessemer Process gave many a pudler pause to worry about any accumulated fortunes once the war was over. A simple exercise of exerting cold air into the bottoms of huge vats filled with molten pig iron gave the railroad and other industries perfect steel within fifteen minutes. Pudlers and smithers couldn't compete.

Andrew Carnegie made his fortune from new mills sprouting in Johnstown and Pittsburgh, PA, where he employed men eager for wages. The industrial age arrived, and telephones and typewriters enriched communication. Rails were quickly laid like huge band-aids over wounded territories. In 1865, the NYSE erected a building on Broad St. in lower Manhattan, seemingly to match the frantic pace of industry.

Many folks headed west, desperate to find fortune in new territory. New waves of immigrants took their places. Many stayed and struggled to find new ways to support their families in what they felt were their established homesteads. The railroads and steel mills provided jobs for the majority. Our Welsh lineage continued to mine, and - as one cousin recently remarked - ended up losing more men to the quarries than they did to 'The War.' One ancestor left Appomattox to raise his family in a neighboring railroad hub.

Between 1900 and 1930, relations between north and south healed sufficiently for one of Cora's northern Welsh/Irish/Scottish ancestors to wed a son of the former Appomattox farmer. She left Baltimore to make her home in southwest Virginia without remark. How did they meet? The railroad, of course!

Hang on to your pocket watches. Next week we'll see how the ancestors fared during the Crash of 1930.

In the meantime, please have a safe observation of our upcoming colonial holiday tradition.

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin

* A pudler is a person who works at turning pig iron into malleable metal that can be worked into things like carriage wheels and horseshoes. This process takes a long period of time, with the result of a small amount of molten steel that isn't very strong.