Books and Manuscripts

A rare bond issued to fund the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge

New York, May 21, 1872. One sheet, 7 3/4 x 12 1/4 in. (197 x 311 mm). Partially-printed bond for the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge (No. 71), issued by the City of New York to Catherine C. Myers, for "One thousand Dollars...payable at the office of the Comptroller of said City, on the first day of November...One Thousand Nine Hundred and Five, with interest at the rate of six per centum per annum, payable semi-annually on the first day of May and November in each year." Signed at bottom by Mayor of New York, A. Oakley Hall, and Comptroller, Andrew Haswell Green; counter-signed by the Clerk of Common Council; red paper seal intact, bottom left corner; transferred on recto to, and signed by, one of New York's wealthiest individuals at the time, the Wall Street financier and businessman, George K. Sistare; cancellation ink stamps verso, dated November 8, 1872; signatures on recto cancelled in ink by New York Stock Clerk. Creasing from contemporary folds. Lot includes a printed ad for the Brooklyn Bridge (then called The Great East River Bridge), circa 1870s.

Plans to connect Brooklyn and Manhattan by bridge were being proposed as early as the beginning of the 19th-century. In February 1867 the New York State Senate passed a law that allowed the construction of a suspension bridge to finally connect the two, and the following April, the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Companies were incorporated. The act of incorporation became law on April 16, 1867, and among other things, it allowed the two cities to subscribe to $5 million in capital stock to fund the bridge's construction. Bonds like this were issued in payment of such subscription, with Brooklyn subscribing to $3 million in stock, New York one and a half million dollars, and $500,000 distributed amongst the 40 incorporators who then made up the first board of trustees.

On May 23, 1867, German engineer John A. Roebling was hired by the board to construct the bridge. Roebling at this time was already a well renowned engineer, known for his bridges that were constructed using his patented wire ropes that allowed for more stable structures that spanned longer distances. The board specifically had in mind his International Bridge at Niagara Falls, and especially his Covington and Cincinnati Suspension Bridge across the Ohio River--the Brooklyn Bridge's prototype, and at the time the world's longest suspension bridge--when considering him. While Roebling's initial estimates put the cost of the bridge at around $10 million (inclusive of construction costs and land acquisitions) to be completed over a five year period, numerous delays, including Roebling's own death, fires, contractor fraud, rampant decompression sickness during the construction of the underwater caissons, amongst other setbacks, slowed construction and ballooned costs. The bridge finally opened to the public on May 24, 1883, after 14 years of construction and at a cost of close to $20 million.

Senator William M. "Boss" Tweed, head of New York's Tammany Hall political machine, used his influence to bribe the city's aldermen to back him for a large purchase of Brooklyn Bridge bonds, like this document, at the inception of their issue. He became a majority shareholder in the project, was put in charge of a committee to oversee its funds, then proceeded to skim money from the bridge's construction contracts, like he had done many times before in similar public works. In 1871, a year before this bond was issued, Mayor A. Oakley Hall appointed George K. Sistare, Sr., to whom this bond was transferred, along with some of New York's other leading bankers, including John Jacob Astor III and Moses Taylor, to a six-man committee tasked with investigating the city's account books for discrepancies. Unsurprisingly, the consensus of the committee, all of whom were either involved or sympathetic to Tammany Hall, found no evidence of wrongdoing. Even though Tweed was arrested in September 1871, before his plan could come fully to fruition, it is estimated that he and his associates stole at least $45 million in public funds, though some scholars suggest the amount was as high as $200 million.

Rare. We have located only one other New York Bridge Bond sold at auction, 20 years ago.