New York Central Ledger Sheet signed by Leonard W. Jerome and William Fessenden - Autographed Stocks and Bonds

2 page Stock Dividend Sheets signed by Leonard W. Jerome and William Fessenden. Large sheets measure 11 1/4" x 17 1/4".

Leonard Walter Jerome (November 3, 1817 – March 3, 1891) was a Brooklyn, New York, financier and grandfather of Winston Churchill.

Leonard Jerome was the son of Aurora Murray and Isaac Jerome. Jerome was born on a farm in the Central New York town of Pompey, near Syracuse. He studied law, graduated from Union College, and set up a practice in Rochester, New York. He later moved to New York City, where he became a stock speculator and promoter.

Jerome was a flamboyant and successful stock speculator. He made and lost several fortunes, and was known as "The King of Wall Street". He held interests in several railroad companies and was often a partner in the deals of Cornelius Vanderbilt. He was a patron of the arts, and founded the Academy of Music, one of New York City's earliest opera houses.

During the New York Draft Riots, Jerome defended the New York Times office building with a Gatling Gun. Although he had significant holdings in the Times, he was not the majority shareholder as is sometimes erroneously claimed.

The Jerome Mansion, on the corner of Madison Avenue and 26th Street, had a six-hundred-seat theatre, a breakfast room which seated seventy people, a ballroom of white and gold with champagne- and cologne-spouting fountains, and a view of Madison Square Park. It was later sold and housed a series of private clubs. The mansion was torn down in 1967.

Jerome was an avid sportsman. He enjoyed yachting with his friend, William K. Vanderbilt. They shared a special passion for thoroughbred horse racing and helped found the American Jockey Club.

In 1866, Jerome bought the estate and mansion of James Bathgate near Old Fordham Village in what was then rural Westchester County, but is now The Bronx. Jerome and financier August Belmont, Sr. built Jerome Park Racetrack on the Bathgate land; the first Belmont Stakes was held there in 1867. Jerome and his brother Lawrence had a wide boulevard made from Macombs Dam to the track, which city authorities attempted to name "Murphy Avenue" after a local politician. This incensed Jerome's wife so much that she had bronze plaques saying "Jerome Avenue" made up and bolted into place along the road, forcing the city to accept the name. The racetrack was acquired and demolished by the city in 1894, to make way for Jerome Park Reservoir. The Bathgate mansion served as a summer home for the Jerome family. In the early 1900s, the mansion was razed and replaced by the Kingsbridge Armory.

Jerome became a resident of Brooklyn. He, Vanderbilt, and other investors founded the Coney Island Jockey Club which in 1884 built the Sheepshead Bay Race Track.

William Pitt Fessenden (October 16, 1806 – September 8, 1869) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. Fessenden was a Whig (later a Republican) and member of the Fessenden political family. He served in the United States House of Representatives and Senate before becoming Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. Fessenden then re-entered the Senate, where he died in office in 1869.

A lawyer, he was a leading antislavery Whig in Maine; in Congress, he fought the Slave Power, plantation owners who controlled Southern states. He built an antislavery coalition in the state legislature that elected him to the U.S. Senate; it became Maine's Republican organization. In the Senate, Fessenden played a central role in the debates on Kansas, denouncing the expansion of slavery. He led Radical Republicans in attacking Democrats Stephen Douglas, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. Fessenden's speeches were read widely, influencing Republicans such as Abraham Lincoln and building support for Lincoln's 1860 Republican presidential nomination. During the war, Senator Fessenden helped shape the Union's taxation and financial policies. He abandoned his earlier radicalism, joining pro-Lincoln Moderate Republicans against the Radicals and becoming Lincoln's Treasury Secretary.

After the war, Fessenden was back in the Senate, as chair of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which established terms for resuming congressional representation for the southern states, and which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Later, during the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, Fessenden provided critical support that prevented the Senate conviction of President Johnson, who had been impeached by the House. He was the first Republican senator to ring out "...not guilty" followed by six other Republican senators, ultimately resulting in the acquittal of President Johnson. Fessenden's vote against convicting Johnson were motivated by his support for free trade and fears of a Benjamin Wade presidency.

He is the only person to have three streets in Portland named for him: William, Pitt and Fessenden streets in the city's Oakdale neighborhood.

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