Early B&O Railroad Stock Certificate No. 13454 for 3 shares issued to Robert Garrett & Sons May 13, 1852. Certificate has an embossed Corporate Seal with a Vignette of early locomotive with stagecoach like passenger carriage. Certificate is in very fine condition and is nearly 171 years old. Certificate is hand signed and 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.
ROBERT GARRETT & SONS
Robert was the founder of the Garrett family in America. After emigrating from northern Ireland in 1790, he and his mother settled in southeastern Pennsylvania. His father had died onboard the ship during the passage to America. Like many Philadelphia merchants, he moved to Baltimore to establish himself in trade with the Mid-West. The National Road, built by President Jefferson, was the preferred route to the Ohio River Valley. The company he founded, Robert Garrett and Sons, remained in business until the middle of the 20th Century. In 1825, the opening of the Erie Canal threatened this economic lifeline, and the State of Maryland felt an equally dramatic response was a necessity. The state established a corporation, sold bonds, sought investors and began construction of the first railroad in America – the Baltimore and Ohio. Ground was broken in 1827 (by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the sole surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence) and the railroad became operational in 1830. His son, John Work Garrett became President of the B&O in 1858, one year after Robert’s death. He served in that office for 28 years, and built the railroad into a far-reaching commercial empire, centered on this city and its port.