In the first place, the firm of Tighe & Co., unlike that of Waterman & Co., was located in a handsome green-gray stone building at 66 South Third Street, in what was then, and for a number of years afterward, the heart of the financial district.

Great institutions of national and international import and repute were near at hand--Drexel & Co., Edward Clark & Co., the Third National Bank, the First National Bank, the Stock Exchange, and similar institutions.

Almost a score of smaller banks and brokerage firms were also in the vicinity.

Edward Tighe, the head and brains of this concern, was a Boston Irishman, the son of an immigrant who had flourished and done well in that conservative city.

He had come to Philadelphia to interest himself in the speculative life there.