Product Details
Chicago and Rock Island Railroad Company
Certificate Type
Capital Stock
Date Issued
Unissued, circa 1850's
Canceled
Yes
Printer
Bowne & Hasbrouck
Signatures
Hand signed
Approximate Size
8" (w) by 4 3/4" (h)
Additional Details
Signed by Henry Farnam
Historical Context
This line's predecessor, the Rock Island and La Salle Railroad Company, was incorporated in Illinois on February 27, 1847, and an amended charter was approved on February 7, 1851, as the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. Construction began in Chicago on October 1, 1851, and the first train was operated on October 10, 1852, between Chicago and Joliet. Construction continued on through La Salle, and Rock Island was reached on February 22, 1854, becoming the first railroad to connect Chicago with the Mississippi River.
In Iowa, the C&RI's incorporators created (on February 5, 1853) the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad Company (M&M), to run from Davenport to Council Bluffs, and on November 20, 1855, the first train to operate in Iowa steamed from Davenport to Muscatine. The Mississippi River bridge between Rock Island and Davenport was completed on April 22, 1856.
In 1857, the steamboat Effie Afton ran into the Rock Island's Mississippi River Bridge. The steamboat was overcome by a fire, which also destroyed a span of the bridge. This accident caused a series of court cases. In one of the cases, Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer at the time, represented the Rock Island. Lincoln argued that not only was the steamboat at fault in striking the bridge, but that bridges across navigable rivers were to the advantage of the country.
The M&M was acquired by the C&RI on July 9, 1866, to form the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company.
Henry Farnham
Henry Farnam was born in Scipio, New York, and grew up working on his father's farm. By his teenage years, he had begun studying mathematics on his own and in 1820 he gained employment initially as a camp cook on the Erie Canal.
Under the wing of Benjamin Wright, America's most famous Civil Engineer at the time and a man who encouraged many young men to study Civil Engineering, Henry Farnam learned Surveying and was soon employed as a Surveyor on the Erie Canal. In 1825 he began working for the New Haven and Northampton Canal, becoming construction superintendent in 1827.
He moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1839 and was instrumental in building the railroad that replaced the canal there in 1848.
In 1850 he moved to Illinois where he partnered with Joseph E. Sheffield to build the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. In 1854 he became that railroad's president, an office he held until his retirement in 1863.
In 1868, Farnam moved back to New Haven where he remained until his death in 1883. His son Henry Walcott Farnam was an economist, and served as president of the American Economic Association in 1911.
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