Kanawha and Michigan Railway Co. signed by Warren Delano - 1890 dated Autographed Stock Certificate

Stock issued to Warren Delano for Frederick D. Hitch and signed on back by Delano. Receipt with 5 revenue stamps on it glued to front of stock. Warren Delano, Jr. related to FDR.

Warren Delano Jr. (July 13, 1809 – January 17, 1898) was an American merchant and drug smuggler who made a large fortune smuggling illegal opium into China. He was the maternal grandfather of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Delano made a large fortune smuggling opium into Canton (now Guangzhou), China. Opium, a highly addictive narcotic (which pharmacists later found can be refined into heroin), was illegal in China.

By the 1800s, there was an immense European demand for Chinese luxury products such as silk, tea, porcelain ("china"), and furniture, but Chinese demand for European products was much less.

As a result, many European nations ran large trade deficits with China. Foreign traders such as the Scottish merchant William Jardine of Jardine Matheson introduced large-scale opium smuggling into China as merchandise to pay for coveted Chinese products. The vast illegal opium trade resulted in millions of Chinese becoming addicted, and in a drastic reversal of the trade imbalance to favor Europe. This led to the First Opium War of 1840–1843.

Delano first went to China at age 24, before the Opium War, to work for Russell & Company, which had pioneered the China trade. Earlier, John Perkins Cushing – also a Russell & Company partner – had worked with the largest Chinese hong merchant, Howqua, to establish an offshore base. At this anchored floating warehouse, Russell & Company ships would offload their opium contraband, then continue with their legal cargo up the Pearl River Delta to Canton.

By early 1843, Delano had prospered greatly in the Chinese opium trade, rising to become the head partner of the biggest American firm trading with China. He had witnessed the destruction of the Canton trading concession system, the humiliation of the Chinese government, and the creation of New China.

In the 1850s, Delano, along with his brother Franklin and Asa Packer, builder of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and founder of Lehigh University, headed a land company that purchased several thousand acres and established the town of Delano, Pennsylvania.

Delano lost much of his fortune in the Panic of 1857. In 1860, he returned to China, except this time to Hong Kong, where he rebuilt his fortune. During the U.S. Civil War, Delano shipped opium to the Medical Bureau of the U.S. War Department.

Read More

Read Less