of the First National Bank of New York.
By 1921, it was the second largest national
bank in the United States, and during the
1920s it grew larger after a series of merg-
ers. Chase National’s securities under-
writing affiliate—Chase-Harris, Forbes
Securities Corporation—was the result of
the merger between its former securi-
ties affiliate, Chase Securities Corporation,
and the firm of Harris, Forbes & Co. in
1931. Harris, Forbes & Co. traced its his-
tory back to N.W. Harris and Company,
a bond house founded by Norman Wait
Harris in 1881–2.
A native of Berkshire, Massachusetts,
Norman Harris was the former secretary of
the Union Central Life Insurance Company
of Cincinnati. After founding N.W. Harris
& Co. in Chicago, he also became a founder
of the Harris Trust & Savings Bank in 1907.
Harris Forbes & Co., a New York invest-
ment house, was founded in 1911. Like First
National, Chase National Bank found itself
in a similar situation after the passage of the
Banking Act of 1933. Chase-Harris, Forbes
Securities Corporation had to be separated
from Chase Bank as did the Chase Corpo-
ration, which was “a holding company for
various investments of the bank,” including
Chase Harris Forbes Corporation. First
Boston also “acquired the right to take over
the named ‘Harris Forbes,’ its good will and
the custody of its records.”
The First Boston Corporation
(f. 1934, Boston)
The newly merged firm was called
The First Boston Corporation. John R.
Macomber, a native of Framingham, Mas-
sachusetts, was named the first chairman.
Macomber, a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology graduate, had been a former
director of First National, vice president of
N.W. Harris & Co. and president of Har-
ris Forbes & Co. He was also the former
chairman of the board of Chase Harris
Forbes Corporation. Col. Allan Melvill
Pope was named president. The son of
a merchant, Pope graduated from the
Boston Latin School and the US Military
Academy. First Boston Corporation was
a publicly held company from its origin.
According to the International Directory
of Company Histories, it was the first
“publicly held underwriting firm.”
In 1946, during Macomber and Pope’s
tenures, First Boston Corporation took
over the Mellon Securities Corporation
of Pittsburgh, which “brought in an addi-
tional $8 million in capital and access
to Mellon’s industrial accounts, among
them Alcoa, Allegheny Ludlum, and Gulf
Oil.” The following year, Macomber and
Pope retired and were succeeded by Harry
M. Addinsell and James Coggeshall Jr.,
respectively. Addinsell was the former
president of the Chase Harris Forbes Cor-
poration and vice president of Harris,
Forbes. He retired in 1951 and was suc-
ceeded by George D. Woods. A native
of Boston, George David Woods was
the son of a shipyard worker. He was
raised in Brooklyn and graduated from
the Brooklyn Commercial High School
before becoming an office boy at Harris,
Forbes & Co. and working his way up the
firm hierarchy at First Boston. Coggeshall
retired in 1962 and was succeeded by Emil
J. Pattberg, who had started working at
First National Bank of Boston in 1929
“in the ‘cage’” and worked his way up
to chairman of the executive committee
of First Boston by 1952. Woods left First
Boston and became the president of the
World Bank in 1963.
First Boston Inc.
(f. 1976, holding company)
In 1971, Pattberg was succeeded by Ralph
Saul, the president of the American Stock
Exchange who was recruited from out-
side the firm to deal with the financial
challenges the firm experienced in the late
1960s when trading volume dropped and
profits dramatically declined. During his
tenure, First Boston Corporation joined
the New York Stock Exchange in 1971 and
became “the first publicly held investment
bank to be granted membership.” In 1975,
George L. Shinn, an Amherst graduate,
was recruited to become chairman and
CEO of First Boston. Shinn had been the
president and chief operating officer of
Merrill Lynch since 1973 and had been
with the Merrill firm since 1948. Alexander
Tomlinson, a member of Morgan Stanley,
joined the firm in 1976 and became chair-
man of the executive committee. That
year, “in March, 1976, First Boston Cor-
poration became a wholly owned subsid-
iary of First Boston Inc.” During Shinn’s
tenure, First Boston Corporation created
an alliance with Credit Suisse to create
Financiere Credit-Suisse First Boston, a
European holding company, in 1978.
First Boston’s alliance with Credit Suisse
stemmed from the acquisition of White,
Weld Holdings, Inc., the parent holding
company of White, Weld & Company,
by Merrill Lynch & Co. in 1978. White,
Weld & Co. was then merged into Merrill
Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., Mer-
rill’s brokerage subsidiary. White Weld’s
relationship with Credit Suisse dated back
to 1962. That year, White, Weld & Co.
sold its Zurich subsidiary to Credit Suisse,
White, Weld & Co. AG. The subsidiary
was renamed Clariden Finanz AG (later
Clariden Bank). Eight years later, in 1970,
Credit Suisse and White, Weld & Co. cre-
ated WW Trust, a holding company for
the Clariden subsidiary. In 1974, “Credit
Suisse became the largest shareholder in
WW Trust, which was renamed Société
Anonyme Financiére du Crédit Suisse et
de White Weld (CS&WW). In 1978, when
Merrill Lynch bought White Weld, it also
bought “a minority interest in Financiere
du Credit Suisse et de White, Weld and
www.MoAF.org | Fall 2019 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 31