Wall Street Field Trip

Stevenson students travelled back in time to New Amsterdam during a field trip to Wall Street. As they learned, New York began as a trading outpost for the Dutch West India Company. The goal was to trade valuable beaver pelts and make money. The Dutch had trading posts along the Hudson River and indigenous people traveled down the path we call Broadway. The wall of Wall Street was a wooden barrier to guard against attacks and later worries about British invasion. Students saw where the canal on Broad Street stood; goods were hauled into town for counting and later taxation. Wall Street is also where George Washington took the oath of office and JP Morgan held court and got a consortium to bail out the U.S. financial system. 

The Stock Exchange arose from the Buttonwood Agreement; a group of businessmen who gathered at the Tontine Coffee House (think Starbucks of the day). Students also saw the Federal Reserve, and visited the graves of Hamilton and his wife Eliza. There they learned that shrewd management of the original land grant given to Trinity Church has swelled to assets over $10 billion today.