BNY History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones

The birth of BNY is inextricably woven into the founding of the American republic. In the wake of the Revolutionary War, the newly independent United States suffered from economic chaos, lacking a stable national currency or commercial banking system. On June 9, 1784, Alexander Hamilton—then a 27-year-old lawyer who would become the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury—drafted the constitution for the Bank of New York, establishing the institution in the Merchants Coffee House on Wall Street. In 1789, Hamilton secured the newly formed United States government's very first loan ($200,000) from the Bank of New York to fund government operations. In 1792, when the New York Stock Exchange opened under the buttonwood tree, the Bank of New York was the very first stock traded. Over two centuries, the bank navigated the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Great Depression by specializing in high-grade institutional fiduciary trust and custodial safekeeping. Meanwhile, in 1869, Judge Thomas Mellon and his sons Andrew and Richard founded T. Mellon & Sons Bank in Pittsburgh, financing America's industrial titans (including Alcoa, Gulf Oil, and Westinghouse). In July 2007, The Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corporation executed a historic $16.5 billion merger of equals, creating the world's preeminent custody and securities servicing empire.