As Baltimore brokerage houses go, the firm of Chapin, Davis is one that has stayed - thanks to the fact that it's staid.
It remains firmly planted in the North Baltimore community where it was founded a half-century ago, refusing to relocate downtown to the financial district that is home to most of its better-known competitors. The area it's entrenched in is home to many a Baltimore notable, who believe in the old-school way of letting friends manage their money.
Proof of its deep-rooted ties to Baltimore's patrician social circles can be seen in a plain, green hardbound volume tucked away in a backroom cabinet at the Chapin, Davis office. It's a list of clients from the early years, and among them is an unmistakable name - Edgar Allan Poe.
Well, actually, it's Edgar A. Poe III, the great-great-great-nephew of the famous writer who died in Baltimore. But it's apropos that a Poe once invested here - this is Chapin, Davis, after all, synonymous with a true-blue Baltimore identity.
Unlike the Baltimore name of Alex. Brown - the oldest investment house in the nation, purchased by Deutsche Banc a few years ago - Chapin, Davis has kept its name going into the 21st century. The firm celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday.
"In a way, we haven't kept up with the times," said Talbot Jones Albert IV, 43, a broker whose sister and father also are employed as brokers at the firm. But, Albert says, keeping up with times and trends isn't what Chapin, Davis is all about.
H. Chace Davis Jr., one of the founding partners who is now retired, said the business has been his life's calling. "We started out with people our age, our friends who obviously trusted us," Davis, 76, said. "The circle did grow. And nothing, nothing ever pleased me more than making money for people."
`A lot of integrity'
At the firm's anniversary bash yesterday in the Cross Keys office, some of the clients named in the green book surfaced, among them Poe, 77, and Joseph S. Keelty, 80.
Poe said a group of people, loosely affiliated, invested with the firm some 40 years ago. "A bunch of us had money with them then," recalled Poe, who attended the Gilman School in the 1930s.
Keelty, a developer and builder, said he started playing cards and golf at the Baltimore Country Club with Bedford Chapin, a founding partner, when they were in their 20s.
"There was a lot of integrity there, and never were you misled about things," Keelty said.
