Northern Pacific Railroad Co. Signed by E.H. Harriman - 1882 or 1885 dated Autographed Stock Certificate

Stock issued to E.H. Harriman & Co. and signed by Harriman for the company. Portrait and biography included with stock.

Edward Henry Harriman, born on February 20, 1848, in Hempstead, New York, was an American financier and railroad executive. His father, Orlando Harriman, Sr., was an Episcopal clergyman, while his mother was Cornelia Neilson. Harriman had a brother, Orlando Harriman, Jr. His great-grandfather, William Harriman, had emigrated from England in 1795 and become a successful businessman and trader.

As a young boy, Harriman spent a summer working at the Greenwood Iron Furnace in the area owned by the Robert Parker Parrott family, which would later become Harriman State Park. At the age of 14, he quit school to take a job as an errand boy on Wall Street in New York City, following in his uncle Oliver Harriman’s footsteps. By the age of 22, he had become a member of the New York Stock Exchange.

Harriman’s interest in upstate New York transportation was piqued by his father-in-law’s position as the president of the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad Company. In 1881, at the age of 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 significant profit. This marked the beginning of his career as a railroad rebuilder, restoring bankrupt railroads to their former glory.

Harriman, nearly 50 years old in 1897, joined the Union Pacific Railroad as a director. By May 1898, he had risen to become chairman of the executive committee, and his authority extended throughout the Union Pacific system until his passing. In 1903, he assumed the presidency of the company. Additionally, from 1901 to 1909, Harriman held the position of president of the Southern Pacific Railroad. His vision was instrumental in the unification of the UP and SP railroads. (The UP and SP were officially merged on September 11, 1996, a month after the Surface Transportation Board approved their union.)

At the time of his death, Harriman’s vast empire encompassed 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. Remarkably, this fortune was entirely bequeathed to his wife.

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