Photo: Carlos Delgado · CC BY-SA 3.0
1653
Wall Street is named after an actual wall built by Dutch settlers.
5 min readLast updated
The short answer
Yes. Wall Street takes its name from a wooden wall that Dutch colonists built across Manhattan in 1653 to protect New Amsterdam. The wall was removed by 1699, but the street along its line kept the name.
Why it's true
In the 1650s, the southern tip of Manhattan was the Dutch colonial town of New Amsterdam. The Dutch West India Company ordered a defensive barrier across the island's northern edge, made of wooden planks and earth, to guard against possible attacks from the English and from local Native American groups during periods of conflict.
A path ran beside the wall, and over time it was called the street by the wall, then simply Wall Street. After the English took the colony in 1664 and renamed it New York, the wall stayed for a while, but it was in poor shape and in the way of the growing city. It was dismantled in 1699.
So the most famous financial address in the world is, at heart, a description of a long gone fence.
By the numbers
1653
Dutch wall built
1699
Wall dismantled
24
Brokers who signed the Buttonwood Agreement
1792
Buttonwood Agreement signed
The backstory
Wall Street's link with finance began later. In 1792, twenty four stockbrokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement, traditionally said to have been made under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street. It set rules for trading securities among themselves and is considered the origin of what became the New York Stock Exchange.
The street also played a role in early American government. Federal Hall, on Wall Street, was where George Washington took the oath of office as the first President in 1789, and where Congress met while New York was the national capital. Today the name is shorthand for the whole American financial industry, wherever it is actually located.
Worth remembering
- Dutch settlers built a wooden wall across Manhattan in 1653.
- The road beside it became Wall Street, and the wall came down in 1699.
- The 1792 Buttonwood Agreement on the street led to the New York Stock Exchange.
In context
Many city street names preserve features that vanished long ago. London has London Wall, named after the Roman city wall, and countless towns have Market Streets with no market. Wall Street is an especially striking case because the name now stands for global finance, yet it began as a plain description of a frontier defence.
The wall also has a darker history that is now better recognised. Records show enslaved Africans, owned by the Dutch West India Company, helped build and maintain it, and the city later held a slave market near the end of the street.
A closer look
New Amsterdam to New York
The Dutch founded New Amsterdam in the 1620s as a trading post, mainly for furs. In 1664 an English fleet arrived and the Dutch surrendered without a major battle. The town was renamed New York after the Duke of York, the future King James the Second.
Many Dutch traces remain in New York's map, including Broadway, which follows an old route, and the names Harlem and Brooklyn, from the Dutch towns Haarlem and Breukelen.
From a tree to an exchange
The Buttonwood Agreement was short. Its signers agreed to trade only with each other and to charge a minimum commission. In 1817 the group formally organised as the New York Stock and Exchange Board, later the New York Stock Exchange.
As trading grew, banks and brokers clustered nearby, and the street's name became a symbol. Today many financial firms are elsewhere, but Wall Street still means finance in news headlines around the world.
Tracing the old line
The wall ran roughly from the East River to the Hudson along today's Wall Street. Its path marked the northern limit of the town at the time.
Archaeologists working on construction sites in Lower Manhattan have found traces of colonial New Amsterdam, which helps historians map the old town edges more precisely.
Related facts
Financial markets have a long history of booms and busts the South Sea Bubble.
The same year the Buttonwood Agreement was signed the United States Mint was founded in 1792.
Finance on the other side of the Atlantic the Bank of England's private beginnings.
Colonial America has other surprising timelines Harvard is older than calculus.
Key terms
- New Amsterdam
- The Dutch colonial settlement on Manhattan that became New York in 1664.
- Palisade
- A defensive fence or wall made of wooden stakes or planks.
- Stock exchange
- A marketplace where shares in companies are bought and sold.
Myth vs reality
Myth
Wall Street is named after a wall of money or buildings.
Reality
It is named after a real wooden defensive wall built across Manhattan in 1653.
People also ask
Who built the wall on Wall Street?
Dutch colonists in New Amsterdam built it in 1653 under the Dutch West India Company. Enslaved Africans are recorded among the workers who built and maintained it.
Why was the wall built?
It was a defensive barrier on the town's northern edge. The colonists feared attack from the English, who were at war with the Dutch, and they were also in periodic conflict with local Native American groups.
When was the wall taken down?
The English, who took over the colony in 1664, removed the decaying wall in 1699. The street that ran beside it kept the name.
How did Wall Street become linked to finance?
Brokers traded there in the late 1700s, and the 1792 Buttonwood Agreement among twenty four brokers is seen as the start of the New York Stock Exchange.
Can you see any of the wall today?
No surviving section stands above ground. Markers and plaques in Lower Manhattan note where the wall once ran.
