Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. transferred to Oliver Harriman - 1900 or 1901 dated Railway Stock Certificate

Stock transferred to Oliver Harriman on back.

Oliver Harriman (September 16, 1829 – March 12, 1904) was an American businessman and a member of the wealthy Harriman family. Oliver Harriman was born on September 16, 1829, in New York City. His parents were Orlando Harriman and Anne Ingland. His brother, Orlando Harriman, was the father of railroad tycoon Edward H. Harriman and grandfather of New York Governor W. Averell Harriman.

His grandfather, William Harriman, emigrated from England in 1795 and engaged successfully in trading and commercial pursuits. Harriman began his career in the dry goods commission house of McCurdy, Aldrich & Spencer. Later, with James Low, his father-in-law, Harriman co-founded Low, Harriman & Co., "one of the best known and wealthiest" dry goods firms in New York City.

Harriman served on the Boards of Directors of the Bank of America, the Guaranty Trust Company of New York (which later merged with J.P. Morgan & Co.), and the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (later known as Mutual of New York).

Edward Henry Harriman (February 20, 1848 – September 9, 1909) was an American financier and railroad executive.

Harriman's father-in-law was president of the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad Company, which aroused Harriman's interest in upstate New York transportation. In 1881, at age 33, Harriman acquired the small, broken-down Lake Ontario Southern Railroad. He renamed it the Sodus Bay & Southern, reorganized it, and sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad at a considerable profit. This was the start of his career as a rebuilder of bankrupt railroads.

Harriman was nearly 50 years old when in 1897 he became a director of the Union Pacific Railroad. By May 1898, he was chairman of the executive committee, and from that time until his death, his word was the law on the Union Pacific system. In 1903, he assumed the office of president of the company. From 1901 to 1909, Harriman was also the president of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The vision of a unified UP/SP railroad was planted with Harriman. (The UP and SP were reunited on September 11, 1996, a month after the Surface Transportation Board approved their merger.)

At the time of his death Harriman controlled the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Saint Joseph and Grand Island, the Illinois Central, the Central of Georgia, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the Wells Fargo Express Company. Estimates of his estate ranged from $150 million to $200 million. That fortune was left entirely to his wife.

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