VALLEY RAILWAY CO Stock 1888 Cleveland, OH. Historic Line. Pres. Jeptha Wade SIG

Description

Valley Railway Company. Stock issued November 23, 1888 at Cleveland, Ohio. Incorporated in the State of Ohio
. Embossed company seal lower left. Certificate
No. 1769
was issued to
M. Allinder Trump
for three shares of capital stock ( per share). Company capital was
,000,000
. Hand signed by company
president Jeptha Homer Wade (see bio below)
and secretary W. B. Porter. Certificate is about 7.5” x 10”. Black print on vellum paper.
Vignette with a train leaving an industrial town along a river.
Valley Railway Company was founded in 1871 by Cleveland and Akron industrialists with the intent of connecting Cleveland, on Lake Erie, to coal producing areas to the southeast in Tuscarawas and Harrison Counties. Because of difficulties in obtaining funding, the first segment of track did not open until 1880, and the line was not completed until 1884. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad obtained controlling interest in the Valley Railway in 1890, and in 1895 the line was reorganized and became the Cleveland Terminal & Valley Railway, which merged with the B&O in 1915. Segments of the railroad are now within adjacent historic areas listed on the National Register of Historic Places, such as along the course of the Ohio and Erie Canal. A scenic railroad is operated today from Independence to Akron, within the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  (see attached route map of the Valley Railway, from Cleveland south through the Cuyahoga Valley)
Jeptha Homer Wade (1811 – 1890) was an American industrialist and one of the founding members of the Western Union Telegraph Company
. Wade began
constructing telegraph lines and operating telegraph offices
in the
1840s
, connecting
Detroit to Jackson, Michigan, Detroit to Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland to Cincinnati, Ohio, (owning the Cleveland and Cincinnati Telegraph Company, the Wade Line)
. In
1856
, Wade and Hiram Sibley consolidated most of the telegraph industry by
forming Western Union Telegraph
, and in
1861
they
formed the Pacific Telegraph Company
,
completing the linkage between the east and west coast of the United States by telegraph
. Wade
became the president of Western Union in 1866
.
Jeptha Wade was also a railroad executive, as president of the Cincinnati, Wabash & Michigan Railway, the Kalamazoo, Allegan & Grand Rapids Railroad, and the Valley Railway
, and t
rustee of the Memphis & Little Rock Railway
. Wade’s
residence was in Cleveland
, where he was an
important philanthropist, donating a large tract of land in Cleveland that would be the location of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Botanical Garden, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
.
Condition:  Very Fine+
, several folds, minor creasing, no tears, minor signs of wear/handling/toning (see photos),
uncancelled.
Printer:
W. J. Morgan & Co. Lith., Cleveland, Ohio.
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