?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(RAILROADS.) Manuscript draft resolution of the Baltimore City Council in support of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 3 pages on 2 sheets; mount remnants on left edges, minor wear and toning. [Baltimore], 12 to 16 March 1827
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was chartered in 1827, and began carrying passengers as the nation's first common carrier railroad in January of 1830. Spurring its development was the desire of Baltimore business leaders to create a direct trade route to the Ohio River, to help the city compete with New York and the Erie Canal. This document is the working draft of the Baltimore City Council resolution authorizing a massive stock subscription. It reads in part, "The effectuation of the above plan will secure to this city the important trade of the western country, on a more enlarged, economical, and advantageous scale than at present enjoyed." Docketing on verso and manuscript revisions show that the resolution was read five times over a five-day period before both branches of the city council, as well as its Committee on Internal Improvement. The clause subscribing $500,000 toward the company's stock remained unchanged, but the clause governing the first payment seems to have been debated extensively. Eventually, eleven lines of convoluted verbiage were replaced by a simple statement, written on a separate slip of paper: "and the sum of five thousand dollars be and the same is hereby appropriated for the purpose of meeting the payment of the first installment." This was approved on 16 March. The subscription books opened four days later, bringing a flood of capital from the city and from private investors. Construction began, and the nation's rail age was soon launched. "A brave enterprise, this--building a railroad, in a day when nothing was known about railroads. So brave, that it easily might have been deemed foolhardy. . . . Youth and courage were with the Baltimore and Ohio, from the very hour of its birth"--Hungerford, The Story of the B&O, 32.
