Watertown and Rome Railroad - Extremely Rare - circa 1840's Unissued Railway Stock Certificate - Newly Discovered
Inv# RS5468 StockNewly Discovered Stock Certificate of the Watertown and Rome Railroad. Unissued Railway Stock Certificate
The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad (RW&O) began in 1842 as the Watertown & Rome Railroad (W&R) to link Watertown with Rome, New York on the Syracuse & Utica Railroad, later consolidated as part of the New York Central Railroad (NYC). The Potsdam & Watertown Railroad was formed at this time to link Watertown with Potsdam, New York in St. Lawrence County. In 1861, these two railroads merged as the RW&O.
A branch line from DeKalb Junction (near Canton, New York) to Ogdensburg was later built. In 1864, the RW&O constructed a line from Pulaski to Oswego and merged with the Syracuse & Northern Railroad. In 1858, the Lake Ontario Shore Railroad (LOS) was chartered from Oswego to Suspension Bridge, New York (now Niagara Falls, New York). RW&O merged with the LOS in 1875; by that time the LOS was bankrupt. Branch lines reached what became resort towns along the St. Lawrence River at the end of the 19th century: Cape Vincent, Clayton and Ogdensburg. At the first two towns, ferries were available to Ontario towns on the opposite side of the river, as well as the Thousand Islands.
The RW&O was nicknamed "Rotten Wood & Old Rusty Rails" due to its crumbling infrastructure. By 1878, the RW&O had been merged into the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W). DL&W built the Ontario Secondary in 1882 (Beebee line) from Charlotte, New York (where the Genesee River flows into Lake Ontario) to Rochester, New York. By 1891, RW&O became a subsidiary of NYC. On April 12, 1913, the RW&O was formally merged into the NYC. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_Watertown_and_Ogdensburg_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.
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