Charles W. Chesnutt to L. L. Winkelman & Company, 28 September 1921
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September 28, 1921.
L. L. Winkelman & Company,
62 Broad Street,
New York City.
Dear Sirs:-
I beg to acknowledge receipt of certificate #H13901 for 100 shares of Merritt Oil Corporation stock, made out in my name.1
Yours very truly,Correspondent: L. L. Winkelman & Co. was a New York-based brokerage firm founded in 1910 and associated with the forerunner of the American Stock Exchange, the New York Curb Market Association. With branches all over the Midwest and a focus on oil stocks, they had many customers in Cleveland, Ohio. Less than two years after this exchange, in June of 1923, the firm went bankrupt and was suspended from the Curb Market.
1. Merritt Oil Corporation was founded in 1916 as one of hundreds of small independent oil companies of the 1910s and 1920s. After its main Wyoming oil field, the Big Muddy, became extremely productive, the company was frequently mentioned in the stockmarket news between 1917 and 1922; L. L. Winkelman & Co. advertised its Merritt Oil stocks regularly in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the company featured prominently in the advertised pamphlet The Wyoming Oils (New York: L. L. Winkelman, 1917; see especially pages 31–33). On September 30, 1921, the price per company share was $7.50, so Chesnutt purchased around $750.00 in Merritt Oil shares (see "New York Curb," Cleveland Plain Dealer [October 1, 1921]: 4). [back]
