Northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets; an omnibus of the Broadway-Wall-Street Ferry line is passing]
The last of the celebrated coffee houses of New York bore the name, Tontine coffee house. For several years after the burning of the Merchants coffee house, in 1804, it was the only one of note in the city.
Feeling that they should have a more commodious coffee house for carrying on their various business enterprises, some 150 merchants organized, in 1791, the Tontine coffee house. This enterprise was based on the plan introduced into France in 1653 by Lorenzo Tonti, with slight variations. According to the New York Tontine plan, each holder's share reverted automatically to the surviving shareholders in the association, instead of to his heirs. There were 157 original shareholders, and 203 shares of stock valued at £200 each.
[Illustration: NIBLO'S GARDEN, BROADWAY AND PRINCE STREET, 1828]
The directors bought the house and lot on the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets, where the original Merchants coffee house stood, paying £1,970. They next acquired the adjoining lots on Wall and Water Streets, paying £2,510 for the former, and £1,000 for the latter.
The cornerstone of the new coffee house was laid June 5, 1792; and a year later to the day, 120 gentlemen sat down to a banquet in the completed coffee house to celebrate the event of the year before. John Hyde was the first landlord. The house had cost $43,000.
[Illustration: COFFEE RELICS OF DUTCH NEW YORK
Spice-grinder boat, coffee roaster, and coffee pots at the Van Cortlandt Museum]
A contemporary account of how the Tontine coffee house looked in 1794 is supplied by an Englishman visiting New York at the time:
The Tontine tavern and coffee house is a handsome large brick building; you ascend six or eight steps under a portico, into a large public room, which is the Stock Exchange of New York, where all bargains are made. Here are two books kept, as at Lloyd's [in London] of every ship's arrival and clearance. This house was built for the accommodation of the merchants by Tontine shares of two hundred pounds each. It is kept by Mr. Hyde, formerly a woolen draper in London. You can lodge and board there at a common table, and you pay ten shillings currency a day, whether you dine out or not.