1882 E.H. Harriman signed Northern Pacific Railroad Company Stock Certificate

Description

1882 E.H. Harriman signed Northern Pacific Railroad Company Stock Certificate
1882 E.H. Harriman signed Northern Pacific Railroad Company Stock Certificate
k490
State: New York
Date: 1882
Color: Green/black
Size: 15 3/4in x 8in (with stub)
Stock issued to E.H. Harriman & Co. and signed by Harriman for the company on back. Printed by National Banknote Co., NY.
History:
Harriman was born on February 20, 1848 in Hempstead, New York, the son of Orlando Harriman, Sr., an Episcopal clergyman, and Cornelia Neilson. He had a brother, Orlando Harriman Jr. His great-grandfather, William Harriman, emigrated from England in 1795 and engaged successfully in trading and commercial pursuits.
As a young boy, Harriman spent a summer working at the Greenwood Iron Furnace in the area owned by the Robert Parker Parrott family that would become Harriman State Park. He quit school at age 14 to take a job as an errand boy on Wall Street in New York City. His uncle Oliver Harriman had earlier established a career there. His rise from that humble station was meteoric. By age 22, he was a member of the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1879 he married Mary Williamson Averell, daughter of William J. Averell, a banker in Ogdensburg, NY.
Harriman's father-in-law was also president of the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad Company, which aroused his interest in upstate New York transportation. In 1881, Harriman acquired the small, broken-down Lake Ontario Southern Railroad. He renamed it the Sodus Bay & Southern, reorganized it, and sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad at a considerable profit. This was the start of his career as a rebuilder of bankrupt railroads.
Harriman was nearly fifty years old when in 1897 he became a director of the Union Pacific Railroad. By May 1898 he was chairman of the executive committee, and from that time until his death his word was law on the Union Pacific system. In 1903 he assumed the office of president of the company. From 1901 to 1909, Harriman was also the President of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The vision of a unified UP/SP railroad was planted with Harriman. (The UP and SP were reunited on Sept. 11, 1996 when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved their merger.)
At the time of his death Harriman controlled the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Saint Joseph and Grand Island, the Illinois Central, the Central of Georgia, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the Wells Fargo Express Company. Estimates of his estate ranged from million to 0 million. It was left entirely to his wife.
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