1877 B&O Railroad 6%Preferred 2nd Series Stock Certificate

Description

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company
Six Percent Preferred, Second
(misspelled " Secod" along left vertical border)
Series Stock Certificate
No.
750
for
9
shares
issued
May 18, 1877
to
Brown & Lowndes.
Vignette of Passenger Train moving left to right,
Embossed Corporate Seal of B&O Railroad on the front of the certificate.
Document is hand signed by
B&O
President Pro Tem John King Jr.
Signature is punch canceled and document has been previously folded into thirds.
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.