Historedia
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Signing of the Buttonwood Agreement

When
May 17, 1792
Where
Outside 68 Wall Street
Part of
Signing of the Buttonwood Agreement

Twenty-four brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement in New York City on May 17, 1792, establishing the foundation for the New York Stock Exchange.

The agreement was signed outside 68 Wall Street. It set a floor commission rate and bound signers to preferential trading. The name derives from the traditional meeting place under a buttonwood tree, not the signing location.

Sources

  1. Buttonwood Agreement Wikipedia, revision of 2026-03-23
  2. New York Stock Exchange Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-18

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.