Washington Board of Trade: Document View

« previous document | next document »

Title: Formal Incorporation of the Washington Board of Trade
Author: the Board of Trade for the District of Columbia; Terry, S.A.
Date: 12/02/1889

Formal Incorporation of the Board of Trade for the District of Columbia, 2 Dec 1889

Document Information

return to document view

Bibliographic Metadata

Author: the Board of Trade for the District of Columbia; Terry, S.A.
Title: Formal Incorporation of the Washington Board of Trade
Date: 12/02/1889
Archive: Special Collections, Gelman Library, George Washington University
Collection name: the Greater Washington Board of Trade
Document location: Box 1, Folder 4 "Background Documents, 1800 to 1973"
Publication location: Washington, D.C.
Publisher:

Descriptive Metadata

Editorial notes:
Description: After a few folders that contain clippings of newspaper articles from the Washington Post and the Washington Star proposing a board of trade for Washington D.C. by newspaper editorialists, this document is the first item in the Greater Washington Board of Trade archives that pertains directly to the Board itself as an organized body. This is a reproduction of the legal document that formally incorporated what was then known as "The Board of Trade for the District of Columbia" on December 2, 1889. (It is unclear what became of the original legal document, which was signed by the first twenty-five directors of the Board and then notarized). For all intents and purposes, the agreement to form the Board came five days earlier in a meeting held on November 28, 1889 at the Ebbitt House located at 14th and F Street, NW. This second meeting performs the legal work needed to incorporate the Board formally.

This document does two important things. One, it legally locates the Board's legitimacy within the framework of Congressional oversight of the District. On June 22, 1874, an act of Congress abolished the territorial government of the District of Columbia, that included an elected House of Delegates and a non-voting delegate to Congress, and replaced it with Federal oversight. This document states the Board of Trade conforms with the provisions stated in Section 605 of Chapter 18 of the 1874 Congressional act. The Board is making it clear from the start that in the absence of D.C. not being able to elect its own government with the 1874 Congressional Act, they are going to provide the District leadership and quasi-form of goverance.

Secondly, it states a twenty-five member group of directors will provide the Board leadership for its first year.
Subjects: Greater Washington Board of Trade;; Washington, D.C. Government;; Board of Trade for the District of Columbia;; 19th Century Washington, D.C.

Technical Metadata

Date scanned: 02/27/2006
Person scanning: Craig Clarke
Date converted: 02/27/2006
Person converting: Craig Clarke
Scanner used: Fujitsu FI-4220C
OCR program: PixEdit 7 Rev. 7.3.6
Technical notes: