1851 Pre Civil War B & O Railroad Stock Certificate signed by Maryland Governor

Description

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company
Pre Civil War B&O Railroad Stock Certificate No. 12676 for 41 shares
issued to
William M. Metcalf
on MNovember 28, 1851.
Certificate has an
e
mbossed Corporate Seal with a
Vignette of early locomotive with stagecoach like passenger carriage. Certificate is in very fine condition and is over 169 years old. Certificate is hand signed by the
B&O President
Thomas Swann who served as Mayor of Baltimore, Governor of Maryland and was elected to the US Senate from the State of Maryland.
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.