Where did Wall Street get its name?
Free-roaming hogs were famous for rampaging through the valuable grain fields of colonial New York City farmers. The Manhattan Island residents chose to block the troublesome hogs with a long, permanent wall on the northern edge of what is now Lower Manhattan. A street came to border this wall — named aptly enough, Wall Street.
In 1653, a wall was constructed on the northern part of the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam to protect the colony from an attack from New England. The wall was made of 16 foot logs sunk four feet into the ground and sharpened at the top. The English did attack in 1664, and the wall was torn down in 1699.
