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United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Co. issued to William Vincent Astor - Stock Certificate

Inv# AG2203   Stock
United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Co. issued to William Vincent Astor - Stock Certificate
State(s): New Jersey
Years: 1913

Stock issued to William Vincent Astor but not signed.

William Vincent Astor (November 15, 1891 – February 3, 1959) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and member of the prominent Astor family.

Called Vincent, he was born in New York City on November 15, 1891. He was the elder son of John Jacob Astor IV, a wealthy businessman and inventor, and his first wife, Ava Lowle Willing, an heiress from Philadelphia.

He graduated in 1910 from St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island, and attended Harvard University from 1911 to 1912, leaving school without graduating.

Like his father, Astor belonged to the New York Society of Colonial Wars. He served as commodore of the New York Yacht Club from 1928 to 1930.

Astor was interested in trains. In the early 1930s, he established an estate in Bermuda which included a private narrow-gauge railway and union station with the Bermuda Railway. The estate is now divided between several private owners, none of whom are part of the Astor family. As recently as 1992, the remains of some of his rolling stock were visible.

Vincent Astor was, according to family biographer Derek Wilson, "a hitherto unknown phenomenon in America: an Astor with a highly developed social conscience." He was 20 when his father died in the sinking of the ocean liner Titanic and, having inherited a massive fortune, he dropped out of Harvard University. He set out to change the family's image from that of miserly, aloof slum landlords who enjoyed the good life at the expense of others.

Over time, he sold off the family's New York City slum housing and reinvested in reputable enterprises, while spending a great deal of time and energy helping others. He was responsible for the construction of a large housing complex in the Bronx that included sufficient land for a big children's playground, and in Harlem, he transformed a valuable piece of real estate into another playground for children.

Astor appeared at No. 12 on the first list of America's richest people, compiled by Forbes magazine. His net worth at the time was estimated at $75 million. Among his holdings was Newsweek magazine, and he was its chairman. The magazine had for a time its headquarters in the former Knickerbocker Hotel, which had been built by his father.

He also inherited Ferncliff, the Astor family's 2,800-acre (11 km2) estate in Rhinebeck, New York, where his father had been born. However, Vincent Astor would be the last Astor family owner of the estate and occupant of the "Ferncliff Casino", a Stanford White-designed 1904 Beaux-Arts style 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) building, which was inspired by the Grand Trianon at Versailles.

On his death in 1959, Astor bequeathed a main house at Ferncliff to the Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, New York. His widow, Brooke, later donated the "Ferncliff Casino" to the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and sold off many parcels of the estate. In 1963, Homer Staley, a retired businessman in the area, asked Brooke Astor to preserve the remaining natural acreage of woodlands from development. She donated the woodlands to the Rotary Club of Rhinebeck, and the land became the Ferncliff Forest Game Refuge and Forest Preserve.

Astor married Helen Dinsmore Huntington on April 30, 1914. At the ceremony, he was stricken with the mumps, a disease that made him sterile; as for the bride, her friend Glenway Wescott, the novelist, admiringly described her in his unpublished diaries as "a grand, old-fashioned lesbian." The couple divorced in 1940. A year later, Helen became the second wife of Lytle Hull (1882–1958), a real-estate broker who was a friend and business associate of her former husband.

Shortly after his divorce, Astor married Mary Benedict Cushing, the eldest daughter of Dr. Harvey Williams Cushing and Katharine Stone Crowell. Mary's sisters were Betsey Maria Cushing and Barbara "Babe" Cushing. They divorced in September 1953, and the following month, Mary wed James Whitney Fosburgh, a painter who worked as an art lecturer at the Frick Museum.

On October 8, 1953, several weeks after divorcing his second wife, Astor married the once-divorced, once-widowed Roberta Brooke Russell. According to an often-told story in society circles, Astor agreed to divorce his second wife only after she had found him a replacement spouse. Her first suggestion was Janet Newbold Ryan Stewart Bush, the newly divorced wife of James Smith Bush II (brother of Prescott Bush), who turned Astor down with startling candor, saying, "I don't even like you." Astor proceeded to tell her that he was not well and, though only in his early 60s, he could not be expected to live for very long, whereupon she would inherit his millions. At that, Janet Bush reportedly replied, "What if you do live?" Mary Cushing then proposed Brooke. Together, Vincent and Brooke developed the Vincent Astor Foundation, a foundation that was designed to give back to New York City. Brooke died in 2007 at the age of 105.

Astor joined the Naval Reserve shortly after it was founded and was commissioned as an ensign on December 28, 1915. He was called to active duty as part of the New York Naval Militia in February 1917 by order of Governor Charles S. Whitman to help guard bridges and aqueducts against possible German sabotage. Astor was assigned to help guard the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Following the declaration of war against Germany, Astor took advice from his friend and future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and volunteered for active duty with the Navy on April 7, 1917. He went overseas on June 9 on the USS Noma (Astor's own yacht which had been acquired as a patrol ship by the Navy). He was later assigned to the armed yacht USS Aphrodite.

He was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) on January 1, 1918, and to lieutenant on July 1, 1918. He was joined in France by his wife, who did charity work with the YMCA at the naval base in Bordeaux, while he served as Port Officer at Royan.

His last assignment was as an officer on the captured German minelaying submarine U-117 during her voyage to the United States. Astor returned to the United States on the U-117 on April 25, 1919, and was discharged on May 24.

After the war, Astor became a companion of the Naval Order of the United States.

In the quiet before the war, Astor sailed the Nourmahal in 1938 to Japan on a secret civilian mission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt to gather intelligence on the Japanese naval operations around the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. As he had done with the Noma in the First World War, he lent his yacht Nourmahal to the Coast Guard for service in the Second World War.

In World War II, Astor again served on active duty with the Navy. He was called to active duty with the rank of commander and given assignment as Area Controller for New York. In this position he coordinated merchant convoys leaving the city and provided informal intelligence work for President Roosevelt.

Perhaps Astor's longer lasting contributions were his weekly reports from the Chase Bank, where his inside access included USSR account balances. On December 13, 1940, Astor began reporting to the US Treasury the Soviet weekly balances in an unbroken sequence (made by occasional substitutes) up through at least 1945.

During the early months of 1942, Astor suggested equipping fishing boats with radios so they could report U-boat sightings. One boat so equipped was Ernest Hemingway's fishing yacht Pilar.

In June 1943, he was promoted to the rank of captain (with date of rank June 18, 1942).

For his service in the Navy, Captain Astor was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal, Naval Reserve Medal with star, World War I Victory Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal.

Vincent Astor died on February 3, 1959, of a heart attack in his apartment at 120 East End Avenue in Manhattan. He left all of his money to the Vincent Astor foundation, with Brooke surprising many. She continued his philanthropic work.

Astor was first interred at his "Ferncliff Casino" estate ("Astor Courts") along the Hudson River in Rhinebeck, New York. The home included an indoor tennis pavilion, two squash courts, and the country's first indoor heated pool. When his widow, Brooke Astor, later disposed of the property, he was reinterred in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Brooke is buried next to him.

His half-brother John Jacob Astor VI, known as "Jakey", felt cheated and resentfully stated that Vincent "had the legal, not the moral right to keep all the money". Jakey sued Brooke to inherit his money. He was certain that Vincent was "mentally incompetent" when signing his last will in June 1958 due to frequent smoking and alcoholism, although Brooke insisted otherwise. While Vincent was hospitalized, Brooke often brought him liquor. Jakey accused her of using the liquor to influence the will in her favor. Jakey ended up settling for $250,000. The rest of the money remained with the Vincent Astor foundation and Brooke.

A mountain in Antarctica bears Astor's name. Rising to a height of 3,710 m, Mount Astor is located in the Hays Mountains of the Queen Maud Range, and was named by Rear Admiral Richard Byrd on his November 1929 expedition flight to the South Pole. Astor had been a contributing philanthropist to the expedition.

The Camden & Amboy Rail Road and Transportation Company (C&A) was chartered on February 4, 1830, on the same day as the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company, after the two competing companies had come to a compromise. The C&A and D&R had the same goals — to connect the Delaware River, serving Philadelphia, with the Raritan River, for access to New York City — one by tow-path canal with some new innovations to cross the hills and the other by the untried railroad technology then emerging in Europe. Both ventures were considered risky, and both needed right-of-way grants from the legislature along the river's banks, requiring negotiations and design compromises before either could lay claim to a land rights charter.

Subsequently, the D&R was built to the west of the original C&A, leaving the Delaware at Trenton and running roughly northeast to New Brunswick along the Raritan River valley, while (from the other direction) the original C&A ran south from New York Harbor via South Amboy on Raritan Bay to Camden, thence across the breadth of New Jersey, connecting by ferry across the Delaware River to Philadelphia, both indirectly but much more rapidly linking New York and Philadelphia—at the time America's fastest growing city with its largest city and, perhaps more importantly, tying together many of its oldest industrial centers.

Robert L. Stevens was president of the C&A in the 1830s and 1840s. The C&A was organized on April 28, 1830. Surveys began on June 16. As railroads were a relatively new development in the U.S., rails and locomotives were imported from Britain. Construction began December 4, 1830, at Bordentown on the Delaware River; construction efforts were supported by horse-drawn carriages.

R. Stephenson and Company built a locomotive steam engine for the Camden and Amboy that was completed in July 1831 and shipped to Philadelphia from Liverpool on the 14th of the same month. It was received by "Edwin A. Stephens for the Camden and South Amboy R. Road & Trans Co." The locomotive engine was named John Bull in reference to its place of manufacture. As of 1986, it was the oldest operable locomotive engine. The John Bull arrived at Bordentown on September 4, 1831, and was first tested on November 12. The first section, from Stewarts Point Wharf near Bordentown north to Hightstown, was opened to the public on October 1, 1832, being operated by horse at first.

Initially, service between Philadelphia and Stewarts Point Wharf was provided by steamboats, and a stagecoach trip was used between Hightstown and South Amboy. The trip cost $3 and ran in 9.5 hours, 1–2 hours faster than other routes. The remainder of the line to South Amboy (the current Hightstown Industrial Track) opened on December 17, allowing for the elimination of the stagecoach transfer, but the Delaware froze on December 27, requiring stagecoach operation south of Bordentown. Freight service began on January 24, 1833. Regular locomotive operation by the John Bull began on September 9 of that year. Within two months a derailment killed two people; this was the earliest recorded train accident involving the death of passengers. In the fall of 1833 the line was extended south to Delanco, and the full line to Camden was completed on December 19, 1834.

The C&A was profitable as soon as it started operations. In 1833 the company grossed about $500,000 but only had expenses totaling $287,000.

On March 7, 1832, the New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company (NJRR) was chartered as a parallel line to the C&A, beginning at Jersey City, closer to New York City, but was limited to building south to New Brunswick due to the C&A's influence; the C&A would build the part from New Brunswick south to Spotswood (changed to Trenton in 1836 due to the alliance with the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad).

In November 1832 the NJRR acquired control of the Newark Turnpike, which paralleled the planned alignment east of Newark, to avoid problems caused by competition. The stock of the Essex and Middlesex Turnpike, running south from Newark to New Brunswick, was bought April 6, 1833; the majority of the line was built directly along the turnpike. The alignment as originally planned crossed the Passaic River on the Centre Street Bridge, then curved south along Park Place and Broad Street directly into the turnpike. A branch would have run from the west end of the bridge south along the river and then southwest to the main line at the south end of Broad Street, but this became the main line and the original plan along Broad Street was never built.

On November 24, 1833, the NJRR bought out the Proprietors of the Bridges over the Rivers Passaic and Hackensack, who had monopolies on their bridges over the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers (on the Newark Turnpike), in order to eliminate their threat. Around 1852, the NJRR acquired the Newark Plank Road and Ferry Company (incorporated 1849) to keep the Passaic and Hackensack monopoly.

Regular NJRR service began September 15, 1834, between Newark and Jersey City, using a temporary track over Bergen Hill. An extension to Elizabeth opened December 21, 1835, using the turnpike from the south end of Broad Street. Service to Rahway began January 1, 1836, again along the turnpike from a point south of Elizabeth. Locomotives were only used south of Newark until January 11, though some horse power operations continued east of Newark. The line opened to east of New Brunswick July 11, with an omnibus transfer the rest of the way; the turnpike was used north of Iselin. On September 8, 1836, the NJRR acquired a majority of stock of the New Brunswick Bridge Company to avoid its local monopoly over crossings of the Raritan River. The double-deck bridge over the Raritan opened October 31, 1837, with a road beneath the railroad, taking the NJRR to New Brunswick. The New Brunswick Bridge Company was authorized to charge a toll on the lower level on May 7, 1838. The old 1795 Albany Street Bridge was removed in 1849, but was later rebuilt.

The Bergen Hill Cut, the last part of the Jersey City–New Brunswick line to be finished, opened on January 22, 1838, replacing the old temporary alignment over the hill and ending the use of horse power. On March 15, 1837, a supplement to the C&A's charter was passed, allowing the branch to New Brunswick connecting with the New Jersey Rail Road to branch off of the C&A at Bordentown rather than Spotswood, to pass through Trenton for a connection with the Trenton Delaware Bridge and the Philadelphia & Trenton Railroad. Portions could be built next to the Delaware and Raritan Canal or along the New Brunswick and Trenton Turnpike.

Construction on the branch began in September 1837 between Bordentown and Trenton, where it was built on the east bank of the D&R Canal. The initial branch opened April 4, 1838. Construction on the extension to New Brunswick began June of that year, opening January 1, 1839. The branch continued northeast from Trenton on the east bank of the canal, splitting at Kingston and running cross-country to Millstone Junction, southwest of New Brunswick. That same day, the NJRR was completed from New Brunswick to Millstone Junction. Despite forming one third of the route, the NJRR only got one sixth of the earnings from the joint operation, which ran between Philadelphia and New York City in 5.5 hours.

By 1839, a connection opened between the Philadelphia & Trenton Railroad and the C&A's Trenton Branch, including a bridge over the Delaware and Raritan (D&R) Canal in Trenton. This allowed for through Philadelphia–Jersey City operation, but most traffic continued to run via Camden due to the distance between the P&T's Kensington terminal and central Philadelphia.

On May 31, 1854, the C&A decided to realign and straighten the Trenton Branch between Trenton and Deans Pond (near Monmouth Junction) due to bad soil conditions on the bank of the D&R Canal. A plank road, later upgraded to a railroad branch, would be built to connect to Princeton, which the new alignment would bypass. A tunnel under the canal in Trenton was completed in March 1860, for the connection between the P&T Railroad and the new alignment. Construction on the new line began October 1862; the Clinton Street Station on the new line at Trenton opened April 20, 1863, replacing the old State Street Station. The first train ran through the new tunnel on October 5, 1863, and the new line (along what is now the Northeast Corridor) opened November 23, cutting New York City–Trenton time to 2.5 hours. The second track on the new line opened September 1864, but the old line remained for southbound freight. The Princeton Branch opened May 29, 1865, on which date passenger trains stopped running over the old line. The old line was removed between Trenton and Princeton in July; a portion in Trenton was kept to serve businesses. The Princeton–Kingston section was removed in September when freight operations began on the Princeton Branch; track north of Kingston (which was not next to the canal) was retained to serve the Rocky Hill Railroad.

Closely tied to the early NJRR was the Paterson and Hudson River Railroad (P&HR), later the main line of the Erie Railroad. The P&HR agreed in June 1833 to build to the west side of the New Jersey Palisades at Marion Junction, where it would use the NJRR's Bergen Hill Cut the rest of the way to the Hudson River. The P&HR opened November 29, 1833, prior to the opening of any part of the NJRR, in the meantime using a stagecoach along the Newark Turnpike to reach the river. A trackage rights agreement was made October 10, 1834, and P&HR operation to Jersey City began October 20. The Long Dock Tunnel opened April 15, 1861, giving the P&HR (by then part of the Erie) its own route to the Hudson River.

Also involved with the NJRR was the Morris and Essex Railroad (M&E), later the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad's (DL&W) main line. On October 21, 1836, the NJRR agreed to carry M&E traffic between Newark and Jersey City, beginning on November 19. A new alignment meeting the NJRR in Harrison opened August 5, 1854. On October 14, 1863, the M&E began using the Long Dock Tunnel.

The Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) also used the NJRR to reach Jersey City from Elizabeth until its own line opened on August 1, 1864.

The C&A often used legislative and legal means to protect its monopoly on New York City-Philadelphia travel. The monopoly was finally broken on May 1, 1876, with the completion of the National Railway, over seven years after the legal monopoly expired.

On January 19, 1831, New Jersey passed a supplement to the D&R Canal's charter, allowing them to build a railroad alongside their canal. However, this was soon mooted by the union between the C&A and D&R. On February 15, 1831, the C&A and D&R were combined as the Joint Companies, with all important decisions made by a Joint Board, and all stock was consolidated.

An act passed February 4, 1831, gave the C&A monopoly powers for nine years against railroads built within three miles of the C&A, in exchange for the state receiving 1000 shares of stock. The Protection Act, passed March 2, 1832, expanded this to give the Joint Companies a monopoly on New York City-Philadelphia traffic across New Jersey. On March 16, 1854, this exclusive right was extended to January 1, 1869, as long as the C&A helped other railroads including the West Jersey Railroad and double-tracked its main line.

In Summer 1835 Robert F. Stockton bought control of the Trenton Delaware Bridge and Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad to end its competition with the C&A and the legal battle to connect at New Brunswick with the NJRR. On October 12 the C&A/D&R Joint Board authorized a purchase of the P&T, and an agreement was signed November 11, by which the P&T would send all traffic beyond Trenton to New York City via the C&A. A pro-C&A board was elected by the P&T on January 12, 1836, and on June 1 the stock of all three companies was divided pro rata.

On September 1, 1862, a competing line began operating via the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad and Camden and Atlantic Railroad, running steamboats between New York City and Port Monmouth at the north end of the R&DB. This common threat caused the C&A and NJRR to work more closely, signing an agreement October 1. The Newark and New York Railroad, later part of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, opened in July 1869, giving major competition to the NJRR from Newark east.

On February 1, 1867, the C&A and NJRR were informally joined as the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Companies (UNJ). The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) approved a lease of the UNJ on May 15, 1871, and the UNJ approved May 19. On May 18, 1872, the C&A, D&R Canal and NJRR were consolidated, forming the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company. The new company was split into two divisions: the New York Division consisted of the NJRR and the C&A Trenton Branch towards Philadelphia, while the Amboy Division was the original C&A main line.

In 1968 the PRR merged with the New York Central Railroad, to form the Penn Central. A series of events including inflation, poor management, abnormally harsh weather conditions and the withdrawal of a government-guaranteed 200-million-dollar operating loan forced the Penn Central to file for bankruptcy protection in 1970. The Penn Central operated under court supervision until 1976, when the Northeast Corridor rail line was transferred to Amtrak for use in passenger service, and the remaining lines were transferred to Conrail. Initially Conrail operated commuter rail service on its lines under contract to the New Jersey Department of Transportation. In 1979, the commuter lines were acquired by New Jersey Transit.

Other branches

Until 1999, the original C&A alignment and the Trenton Branch from Pavonia Yard to Trenton was labeled as Conrail's Bordentown Secondary. It is presently operating as New Jersey Transit's RiverLINE, a Diesel multiple unit light rail transit line. Freight trains operate overnight under a Federal Railroad Administration waiver. The remaining portion of the Trenton Branch is part of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

The original line from Bordentown heading north to Robbinsville is operated by Conrail Shared Assets as the Robbinsville Industrial Track. The line ceased being a through route in 1967 when the PRR severed trackage between Windsor-Hightstown. Conrail abandoned the Hightstown-Cranbury segment in late 1982; additional trackage between Windsor-Robbinsville was dismantled in 2011 by Conrail Shared Assets. Conrail Shared Assets operates the line north of Cranbury to South Amboy via Jamesburg.

The Princeton Branch is still used by New Jersey Transit for passengers. The old alignment in Trenton is still used for freight; the old alignment from Rocky Hill to Monmouth Junction was abandoned in 1983 by Conrail, and the Rocky Hill Branch was obliterated by Conrail for the use of a rail trail along the D&R Canal. However, the Florence Branch still exists.

For 49 miles east from Trenton to the site of Manhattan Transfer station the line is part of the Northeast Corridor; from there east to the east side of the Palisades PATH and Conrail's Passaic and Harsimus Line occupy the right-of-way, side by side. East of the Palisades, the elevated structure to Exchange Place Terminal has been largely torn down, as has the elevated structure to Harsimus Cove (with the exception of the Harsimus Stem Embankment), but PATH follows the alignment of the former underground.

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Condition: Excellent

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.

Item ordered may not be exact piece shown. All original and authentic.
Price: $110.00