Five Generations

In the wake of the Panic of 1857, "that nest of gamblers the Brokers' Board" (socalled by a Manhattan newspaper seeking to fix responsibility for the financial chaos) met one day to elect a new president. The jittery board finally picked the one man they thought could steer them out of trouble--Henry George Stebbins, a skilled yachtsman who later became commodore of the New York Yacht Club. Under President Stebbins the New York Stock Exchange weathered the Panic, headed for the dazzling days of the Civil War boom.

Henry George Stebbins died in 1881, and his grandson, Henry George Stebbins Noble, took over his seat. He in turn was elected to the presidency, was at the tiller in 1914 when the torpedoed Exchange went into drydock for four and one-half months. Last week, at 79, he was the Exchange's oldest member in point of seniority (56 years), had been on its governing committee longer than any other man (37 years), was one of its few authors (The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 and The Stock Exchange: Its Economic Function). Author Noble blames depression on wars, says that to blame speculators and the Exchange is to reason "that when a barometer falls it creates and precipitates the ensuing storm. . . ." Since 1935 he has retired from most Wall Street activities except lunching, has read Greek mythology and European newspapers, listened to music, cruised in chartered yachts.

Last week, Henry George Stebbins Noble applied to the committee on admissions to have his seat transferred to his grandson, 22-year-old Henry Stebbins Noble. Fresh from Yale ('38), where he was a ranking economics scholar, a 150-pound oarsman, Henry Noble is a green clerk in the big odd-lot firm of De Coppet & Doremus, will act as one of their floor brokers. On his family record, he is the No. 1 candidate for president of the Stock Exchange during the Panic of 1971.

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