The Manhattan Company

The Manhattan Company was a New York bank and holding company established on September 1, 1799. The company merged with Chase National Bank in 1955 to form the Chase Manhattan Bank. It is the earliest of the predecessor institutions that eventually formed the current JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The Manhattan Company was formed in 1799 with the ostensible purpose of providing clean water to Lower Manhattan. However, the main interest of the company was not in the supply of water but rather in becoming a part of the banking industry in New York. At that time, the banking industry was monopolized by Alexander Hamilton's Bank of New York and the New York branch of the First Bank of the United States. Following an epidemic of yellow fever in the city, Aaron Burr founded the company and successfully gained banking privileges through a clause in its charter granted to it by the state that allowed it to use surplus capital for banking transactions. The company raised 2 million dollars, used one hundred thousand dollars for building a water supply system, and used the rest to start the bank. The company apparently did a poor job of supplying water, using hollowed out tree trunks for pipes and digging wells in congested areas where there was the danger of raw sewage mixing with the water. After a multitude of cholera epidemics a water system was finally established with the construction between 1837 and 1842 of the Croton Aqueduct.

On April 17, 1799, the Manhattan Company appointed a committee "to consider the most proper means of employing the capital of the Company" and elected to open an office of discount and deposit. The "Bank" of the Manhattan Company began business on September 1, 1799, in a house at 40 Wall Street. In 1808 the company sold its waterworks, pocketing 1.9 million dollars, to the city and turned completely to banking. Even so, it identified as a water company as late as 1899. The Company maintained a Water Committee which yearly assured, quite truthfully, that no requests for water service had been denied, and moreover conducted its meetings with a pitcher of the water at hand to ensure quality. It is unclear whether anyone at these meetings actually tasted the water.

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