Beech Creek Railroad Co. Issued to William Kissam Vanderbilt - 1880's dated Railway Stock Certificate
Inv# AG1827A Stock
Stock Issued to but not signed by Wm. K. Vanderbilt. 1,000 shares! Printed by American Bank Note Company, New York. Portrait and biography included.
William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849-1920) A member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family. The second son of William Henry Vanderbilt, from whom he inherited $60 million, he was for a time active in the management of the family railroads, though not much after 1903. His sons William Kissam Vanderbilt II (1878-1944) and Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884-1970) were the last to be active in the railroads, the latter losing a proxy battle for the New York Central Railroad in the 1950s. William K. Vanderbilt's first wife was Alva Erskine Smith (1853-1933), who he married in 1875. Born in 1853 to a slave-owning Alabama family, she was the mother of his children and was instrumental in forcing their daughter Consuelo (1877-1964) to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895. Not long after this the Vanderbilts divorced, William K. later marrying Anne Harriman Rutherford Sands and Alva marrying Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont. After the death of his brother Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1899 he was generally regarded as head of the Vanderbilt family. Like other members of his wealthy family, he built magnificent Vanderbilt houses. His homes included Idle Hour (1900) on Long Island, New York and Marble House (1892), designed by Richard Morris Hunt who also designed his 660 Fifth Avenue mansion (1883), in Newport. William Kissam Vanderbilt died in Paris, France in 1920. His remains were brought home and interred in the Vanderbilt family vault in the Moravian Cemetery at New Dorp on Staten Island, New York. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kissam_Vanderbilt
The Beech Creek Railroad is a defunct railroad which operated in central Pennsylvania between Jersey Shore and Mahaffey. Originally chartered in 1882, it was leased by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad (later the New York Central Railroad) in 1890 and was directly operated by that company afterwards. Much of the line was abandoned in the second half of the 20th century, though sections at both ends are still active. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beech_Creek_Railroad
A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.
Ebay ID: labarre_galleries