one of our most venerated and cherished purposes is even now on the way of fulfillment, and a sin of deplorable neglect of duty being eased from our collective conscience. This is the indexing and cataloguing of the papers contained in the numerous "black boxes," as they are currently designated, that, once in the State House at Baton Rouge, have come into possession of the Historical Society, after many vicissitudes and escapes from destruction during the Civil War. The boxes contain the records of the routine transactions of the Superior Council, the chief governing body of the French regime in the Louisiana colony, from the time of its planting, through the Spanish regime to the American domination, that is, from 1769 to 1803.

The Society by one of the providential favors that have cheered its existence during the past, has been able to profit by the sojourn in our city of one of the most competent and noted archivists in the country, and secure his most valuable services for the task which heretofore had baffled the patience and skill of the volunteer workers from among its members. When completed, and, according to present hopes, published, this will furnish to the political and historical student body of the country, and to other historical societies entrance to a mine of rich material hitherto closed to research or only obtainable in fragmentary or irregular quantities. This work will, without doubt, constitute one of the most brilliant services of the Society to the State.

And not to be passed over on this occasion is the fine educative precedent established by the State in confiding to the Historical Society, as a part of its official functions, the charge of the proper observance of historical anniversaries, and thereby assuring to the celebration of the great events in the history of the State a fitting dignity of programme with historical accuracy of detail which make them elevating and patriotic in the highest sence of the word.

The celebration of the Centennial of the Cession of Louisiana by France to the United States in 1903 was the occasion of a great and proud demonstration in ceremonial form

by the Society representing the State, in honor of the most solemn and important events of her history. In 1915 was celebrated in no less imposing a manner the centennial of the Battle of New Orleans and of one hundred years of peace with England, inaugurated by the battle. The three days' pageant, comprising the mimic representation of the events that followed the battle, is too recent a memory, and has been too generously noted by the press of the country, to need more than a mere reference. The details of the celebrations and all the official documents pertaining to it will be perpetuated in a separate publication, as was accorded by the Society to the celebration of the Cession of Louisiana. GRACE KING.

25th March, 1915.

EARLY FINANCING IN NEW ORLEANS.

1831-BEING THE STORY OF THE CANAL BANK-1915.

By Mr. T. P. Thompson.

INTRODUCTION.

On March 5th, 1831, the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company was given authority by the Louisiana State Legislature to incorporate and to go into business; $4,000,000 was the capital authorized, and the construction of a navigation canal above Poydras street from the city to lake Pontchartrain was the improvement which warranted the state in chartering this enterprise.

The brain and ability which conceived the idea of an "improvement bank" was furnished by Maunsell White. Beverly Chew was invited by Col. White to join him in exploiting his plan. Both of these men came to New Orleans just before the cession of Louisiana to the United States. Beverly Chew was of the firm of Rely and Chew; Commission Merchants; a partner of this firm in 1810 was Daniel Clark, father of Myra Clark Gaines, whose suit for her alleged father's estate was most noted in the legal history of this country. Chew was at a later period President of the United States Branch Bank which opened at Royal and Conti in 1804, and he there became friendly with Maunsell White, one of its leading directors.

DeBow in 1853 writes: "The name of Maunsell White has been familiar in New Orleans during the whole period of its American history; he has ever sustained the reputation of a good man, a useful citizen, and an enterprising and irreproachable merchant. His commercial operations have given him high position throughout the whole Valley of the Mississippi.

"Colonel White arrived in this country from Ireland in early youth and reached New Orleans in 1801, when it was hardly more than a respectable village, and when only scat

tering settlements were to be found on the Ohio or the Mississippi as low down as Point Coupee.

"He was at an early period Chairman of the Finance Committeee in the Council of New Orleans, and there worked out a plan to make property pay for street paving, he was also a pioneer for defending the city from inundation by protecting levees.

"Maunsell White retired from active business in the early forties to his plantation Deer Range' in Plaquemines, which parish he represented in the State Senate, of which body he was elected President, and served on the Committees of Finance and Commerce. He was also an administrator of the University."

In a directory of 1822, Maunsell White is set down as Commission Merchant at No. 3 Chartres St. Dwelling, 16 Canal, below Chartres.

In 1827 he moved to 48 Camp Street for his business office, and began living in the town house which he afterwards occupied for twenty-five or more years, at Julia and St. Charles Street.

Maunsell White has a peculiar monument to his memory today his name being given in the fifties to a pepper sauce. In down-town restaurants you may still get a particular pepper by asking for Maunsell White, just as you may grow hilarious calling for "Roffignac," (Mayor in 1820 of New Orleans), whose name lives in a drink still affected by oldtimers.

As stated, Louisiana authorized by charter the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company to construct a navigation canal at a point above Poydras street. This enterprise proved epochal; beginning as it did, a most wonderful era of activity and improvement in New Orleans.

The successful construction of a completed canal, at the moderate cost of $1,119,000, about half the cost as estimated, was a demonstration of such economy and excellence, that numerous other "improvement companies" quickly followed, and The Gas Works Company, the St. Louis Hotel,

the St. Charles Hotel, completed in 1836,-the Water Works Company of 1837, as well as many new railroad projects, including the Carrollton Railroad, were very shortly started into existence, all with similar banking charters: All completed their "improvements"-none but the Canal survived in banking.

The man who devised this plan which seemed so well suited to the times, was Maunsell White, and he, Beverly Chew, Archibald Taylor, Samuel Livermore, James Foster, Charles Genois and D. F. Burthe, were appointed by Governor Derbigny and the Senate of the State of Louisiana, to act as Commissioners, with due authority to open books of subscription to stock in the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company, and to raise the capital required for the public work involved. The records show that the capital was soon oversubscribed and that the bank proceeded to business at once; even to completing its own office building in 1832.

Colonel White and Beverly Chew, together, by personal effort, brought into existence this new giant corporation with $4,000,000 of actual money, and as commissioners set it going. Six years later, the completed canal was turned over to the State, and today is a most valued convenience of commerce and source of revenue. The banking business also went ahead, and in spite of panics, war, overflow and pestilence, has maintained a consecutive organization up to and into the present period of sky-scrapers, automobiles and aeroplanes, adopting new methods, even building itself a sky-scraper. It has conformed to every change of trade, always adapting itself to the demands of its customers, ever retaining its name and its character for integrity; performing a quasi-public service down to the present year, when the community is getting ready to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, in which the promoting principals of this bank-Beverly Chew, Maunsell White and Geo. B. Ogden, each actually took part. Is it not well worth recording-this long and honorable career?