New Jersey Junction Railroad Co. dated 1917 issued to and signed by Wm. K. Vanderbilt - Autographed Stocks and Bonds

Stock issued to and transferred to William K. Vanderbilt and signed on transfer sheet. Two revenue stamps on back.

William K. 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.

The New Jersey Junction Railroad (NJJ) was part of the New York Central Railroad and ran along the Hudson River in Hudson County, New Jersey, from the West Shore Railroad (NYCRR) yards at Weehawken Terminal south to Jersey City. It later owned an extension to the north, separated by the Weehawken yard from the original line.

The company was incorporated under the laws of New Jersey on February 27, 1886. On July 1, 1886, it was leased for 100 years to the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. The line opened for freight in May 1887 and passengers in June 1887.

About 0.24 mile of the New York and Fort Lee Railroad was leased to the New Jersey Junction Railroad on June 30, 1886.

The NJJ owned the entire stock of the New Jersey Shore Line Railroad, Jersey City and Bayonne Railroad, and State Line and Stony Point Railroad; only the former constructed track. On October 24, 1914, the NJJ was reorganized as a merger with the New Jersey Shore Line Railroad.

In 1952, the New York Central Railroad officially subsumed the New Jersey Junction Railroad, which it had controlled since its beginning. The line eventually passed under control of CSX and Norfolk Southern as their River Line and Weehawken Branch. The southern section is now being used for New Jersey Transit's Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, from North Bergen, south to Hoboken, with freight now running along the former Northern Railroad of New Jersey on the other side of the New Jersey Palisades.

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