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J. H. Wade autographed Cincinnati, Wabash and Michigan Railway - Railroad Stock Certificate

Inv# AG1161   Stock
J. H. Wade autographed Cincinnati, Wabash and Michigan Railway - Railroad Stock Certificate
State(s): Indiana
Years: 1880-81
jephahwadesig.jpg

Jeptha Homer Wade (1811-1890), Financier, Builder of telegraph lines. Wade was one of the founders of the American commercial telegraph system. President for a short time in 1866 of Western Union Telegraph Co. Also important in Railroads. He started as an itinerant painter of portraits and branched out into photography when he learned of the invention of the daguerreotype and purchased a camera to widen his field of portraiture. Wade signs this 1880-81 State of Indiana Certificate #1 as President! Great!

In relation to this railroad, the Cincinnati Northern Railroad was a railroad that stretched from Franklin, Ohio (near Cincinnati) north to Jackson, Michigan, a distance of about 186 miles (299 km). It was acquired by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway in 1901 and the New York Central Railroad several years later. Most of the line has since been abandoned.

In the 1850s, a line was surveyed and partially graded from Cincinnati north to Van Wert, but construction was halted by the Panic of 1857. Construction on a north-south line through Ohio's western tier of counties did not begin again until the 1870s. The Van Wert, Paulding and Michigan Railway was incorporated in December 1874 to build a short branch from the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railway (at Cecil) to Paulding. However, the Paulding and Cecil Railway was incorporated for the same purpose in December 1879, and opened in September 1880.

Another short segment of the future Cincinnati Northern was built by the Celina, Van Wert and State Line Extension of the Columbus and North–Western Railway, incorporated in May 1878 for the purpose of building a line from Celina north to the state line in Williams County. Near the state line it would meet the Columbus and North–Western Railway, which had been incorporated in 1872 to build from Columbus to the state line in that same county, but was never constructed. The line was built to 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge to connect with the growing Toledo, Delphos and Burlington Railroad (TD&B), opening from Van Wert south to Ohio City on the TD&B in August 1879, to the Mercer County line in January 1880, and to Rockford in September 1880, for a total of 13 miles (21 km). At Rockford, it connected to another TD&B branch, which had been completed from Delphos in December 1878; the TD&B finished a line (later part of the main line to Dayton) from that branch at Mercer south to Celina in November 1880. Thus the Celina, Van Wert and State Line had helped to form a line south to Celina, but it ended at Van Wert in the north.

The Cincinnati, Van Wert and Michigan Railroad (CVW&M) was incorporated in January 1881 to complete the 3 ft (914 mm) line, and soon leased the Celina, Van Wert and State Line and Van Wert, Paulding and Michigan. The former was converted to 4 ft 8+12 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge on June 4, 1881, and the latter built a line that year from Van Wert north to the county line at Scott. The CVW&M itself, which bought the property of its two lessors later that year, built from Scott north to Paulding and Rockford south to West Manchester before merging with a Michigan corporation, the Jackson and Ohio Railroad (incorporated January 1884), in March 1886, to form the Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw Railroad (CJ&M). That company bought the Paulding and Cecil in May 1887, and that year completed the full line from Addison, Michigan south to Carlisle, Ohio. Trackage rights were initially secured over the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad (CH&D) from Carlisle into Cincinnati in 1888, but the CJ&M also extended its line from Carlisle to Franklin in 1888, and in January 1896 changed its Cincinnati access to the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (Big Four) from Franklin to Middletown, the recently opened Middletown and Cincinnati Railroad to Hageman, and the recently standard-gauged Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway (CL&N) into Cincinnati.

The CJ&M bought a second line from the Michigan and Ohio Railroad in March 1887, stretching from Allegan past the north end of the main line at Addison to Dundee, Michigan. This line, however, was sold at foreclosure to the Toledo and Milwaukee Railroad in 1897, soon after the Jackson and Cincinnati Railway (incorporated 1895, sold 1898) built an extension north to Jackson.

The CJ&M was not a profitable enterprise, and went through a reorganization in 1892 as the Cincinnati and Michigan Railroad, immediately merging with the Michigan and Mackinaw Railroad (which had acquired the Allegan-Dundee line) to form the Cincinnati, Jackson and Michigan Railway. Throughout this period, the CJ&M attempted to convince the CH&D to acquire it by threatening to buy the CL&N and thus obtain its own line into Cincinnati. But when the CH&D tried to buy the CJ&M in the early 1890s, the CL&N protested and obtained an injunction due to a state law forbidding anti-competitive mergers. The CJ&M continued to improve its value to a potential purchaser, organizing the Dayton and Cincinnati Terminal Railroad in May 1894 to build a Cincinnati-Dayton line including a long tunnel under Cincinnati's Walnut Hills. Finding that the older Cincinnati Railway Tunnel Company owned such a franchise and an incomplete tunnel, the CJ&M bought up that company's first-mortgage bonds and forced a foreclosure, acquiring the tunnel in May 1896. The new terminal company was renamed the Cincinnati Northern Railroad in December 1894, and bought the CJ&M at its final foreclosure in July 1897. The Big Four subsequently acquired the Cincinnati Northern in 1901, and sold the unused tunnel property, as well as about 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land it had acquired for a Cincinnati terminal, to the CL&N, now owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, in 1902.

The Cincinnati Northern was formally merged into the Big Four effective June 30, 1938. Since then, most of the line has been abandoned, with only a few short pieces still in place, mostly operated by short lines: Germantown Rail Siding from Carlisle to Germantown, R.J. Corman Railroad/Western Ohio Lines (which is owned by the R.J. Corman short line railroad company) from Greenville to Ansonia, Chicago, Ft. Wayne and Eastern Railroad at Van Wert, and Norfolk Southern Railway at Jackson, MI and Bryan, OH, and Pioneer Railcorp in Cecil, Ohio.

Jeptha Homer Wade (August 11, 1811 – August 9, 1890) was an American industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the founding members of Western Union Telegraph. Wade was born in Romulus, New York, the youngest of nine children of Jeptha and Sarah (Allen) Wade. He made the first Daguerreotypes west of New York, was a portrait painter, and moved to Adrian, Michigan in 1840 before developing an interest in the telegraph.

In 1847, he was subcontractor for J.J. Speed and constructed a telegraph line from Detroit to Jackson, Michigan, where Wade and his son operated the telegraph office. He also connected Detroit, Michigan to Buffalo, New York Cleveland to Cincinnati (Cleveland and Cincinnati Telegraph Company, the Wade Line), and others.

Wade moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1856 with his wife and only child, Randall P. Wade (1835–1876). Eventually Randall would supervise the construction of two adjoining mansions with a shared driveway on Cleveland's Euclid Avenue, called Millionaires' Row. His grandson, Jeptha H. Wade II (1811–1890) commissioned the Cleveland firm of Hubbell & Benes to design several residences, commercial and public buildings.

In 1856 Jeptha helped Hiram Sibley consolidate most of the telegraph industry by forming Western Union through a series of acquisitions and mergers. In 1861, Jeptha Wade joined forces with Benjamin Franklin Ficklin and Hiram Sibley to form the Pacific Telegraph Company. The company's formation completed the linkage between the east and west coast of the United States by telegraph. Wade became president of Western Union in 1866. A year later he resigned because of ill-health and sold his interests to Jay Gould, and William Orton succeeded to the presidency of Western Union. Jeptha was nominated by the Democratic Party for Representative of Ohio's 18th congressional district in 1864, but lost. He was an incorporator of the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company and the Citizens Savings and Loan Association (becoming its first president), became president of National Bank of Commerce, and served on the board of directors of eight railroads.

Wade used his vast wealth to benefit the city of Cleveland. In 1882, he donated 63 acres (250,000 m2) of land east of the city for the purpose of creating Wade Park, which was named in his honor. Wade Park is Cleveland's cultural center surrounded by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Western Reserve Historical Society and the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Wade also was heavily involved with the establishment of Hathaway Brown School, a private academy for young girls and women. He also co-founded the Case School of Applied Technology, which later became part of Case Western Reserve University. In addition, Wade served as the first President of the Board of Trustees for Lake View Cemetery on Cleveland's east side.

Wade married Rebecca Louiza Facer in 1832, who bore his first son, Randall Palmer Wade, later that year. Rebecca Wade died November 30, 1836 at the age of 24. He remarried in 1837 to Susan Maranda Fleming, with whom he adopted 4 more children. All are buried in Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland.

Wade's grandchildren included Jeptha Homer Wade II (1857–1926), son of Randall Palmer Wade and Anna Rebecca McGaw Wade. He worked in the banking industry, railway business, mining industry, and manufacturing after graduating from Mt. Pleasant Military Academy in Ossining, New York and Western Reserve University. He owned the USS Wadena (SP-158). He established the family's Mill Pond Plantation in Thomasville, Georgia in 1906 (later divided by the family to include the Arcadia Plantation). He bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History a large gem collection that is now part of the Jeptha Homer Wade II Gallery of Gems and Jewels.

A grandchild of Jeptha Homer Wade II was Jeptha Homer Wade III (December 26, 1924 – August 8, 2008), son of George Garretson and Irene Love Wade, who was a prominent Boston attorney assisting in the formation of the federal Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and served in the American Field Service beginning in 1944. He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1946 and Harvard Law School in 1950. He volunteered as an assistant to retired Secretary of the Army John McCloy in the formation of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under the Kennedy Administration before returning to Choate, Hall & Stewart in 1961. He was an advocate for nuclear arms control, president of the Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control (later known as LAWS, Lawyers for World Security). He married Emily Vanderbilt, daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt III, who in 2015 added to the family's land holdings in Thomasville, Georgia, by purchasing roughly 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) of the Greenwood Plantation. The large tract of old-growth forest will be conserved for research on the ecology of longleaf yellow pine forests. Jeptha Wade has many living descendants.

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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.

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