1873 B & O Railroad Co. Stock Certificate - John Work Garrett signed

Description

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Stock Certificate No. 35974
for 25
shares issued to D D Mallory & Co.
on
March 5
, 1873.
Certificate has a vignette of a wood burning locomotive pulling a freight train flanked by vignettes of lovely ladies with an embossed B&O Corporate Seal in the lower left corner. Document is
hand signed by B&O President J W Garrett
.  Officers signatures are punch canceled but otherwise the certificate is in very fine condition.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
pioneered the concept of the common carrier railroad in 1827.
The B&O was chartered in 1827, and construction on the main line began the next year. The first tickets for passenger excursions were sold in 1829, and the twenty-one kilometer (thirteen-mile) line from Baltimore to Ellicott Mills opened in 1830. Regular service was provided using horses for motive power, but by 1831, steam locomotives took over passenger trains, and horses were completely eliminated from freight service within the next few years. The Baltimore & Ohio was the first common carrier railroad chartered in the United States. It wasn’t the first in the world; that accolade belongs to the Stockton & Darlington and Manchester & Liverpool, both English, in 1825. The B&O sent its first engineers and financiers across the Atlantic to inspect and learn from these pioneer railways to learn the latest technology. The railroad was conceived as a means to capture western trade for the port of Baltimore.