: It all began with a dry goods auction in a Philadelphia coffee
house on November 26, 1805, when Tristram Bampfylde Freeman
hammered down two bales of "superfine and common cloths" and
other textile lots. Thus was born what is known today as Samuel
T. Freeman & Company, the oldest auction house in America.
Freeman, the former printer in London to King George III and
twice a bankrupt there, had arrived in Philadelphia in 1795. He
established himself as a printer and began conducting sales of
real estate and merchandise at the Merchant's Coffee House, the
center of city business and political life of the time. He was
initially a mover of woolens and other commodities coming through
the port city of Philadelphia. By 1801, he was a citizen.
Freeman was granted a charter November 12, 1805, by Pennsylvania
Governor Thomas McKean and until 1822, when the auction business
was opened up to competitors, he enjoyed a monopoly in his
adopted city.
