NEW YORK & ERIE RAILROAD Stock Auction Certificate. Signed Joseph Strong, Commissioner, 30 Aug. 1841
Single sheet, folded to 33 x 20 cm., one page a manuscript, approx. 90 words, [2] blank, docketed on fourth page. Watermarked "USN" with Ship & Hudson. Ink browned. Simeon Draper, Jr., auctioneer of the city of New York, certifies that a public auction will be held at the merchants exchange on Aug. 25, for the sale of $100,000 of stock numbered from 1900 to 2000 bearing 6% interest. Joseph Strong, Commissioner, signed the handwritten document. The New York and Erie Railroad Company was enfranchised and incorporated in 1832, and construction was begun in 1835 near Deposit, NY. The year 1851 saw 446 miles (718 km) of trunk line across New York state completed to Dunkirk, NY, on Lake Erie, at a huge cost. The railroad was extended to Jersey City, N.J., and to Buffalo, N.Y., but in 1861 the company failed and was reorganized as the Erie Railway Company. The company gained sound financial footing during the Civil War before it became the subject of a tremendous financial battle. Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, and James Fisk allied themselves and from 1866 to 1868 outmaneuvered-with the aid of unauthorized stock issues, political chicanery, and incessant litigation-Cornelius Vanderbilt, to keep control of the Erie Railway Company. After further financial trickery, the Erie Railway Company went bankrupt and was reorganized (1878) as the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railway Company. In 1960 the Erie merged with the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western RR to form the Erie-Lackawanna. Item #67637
Price: $150.00