Stephen Girard Plans The Never Realized Danville-Pottsville Railroad

Book Description

LS. 2pg. 7 ¾” x 9 ¾”. May 5, 1831. No Place. A letter signed “Stephen Girard” and “S.H. Carpenter” regarding their work on the Danville-Pottsville Railroad: “Know all men by these presents that Mr. Samuel H. Carpenter and Stephen Girard, Esq., of the City of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania are held and firmly bound unto the President and managers of the Danville and Pottsville Rail Road Company in the sum of Twenty Thousand Dollars money of the United States to be paid to the Said President and Managers or their assigns, to which payment will and truly to be made…ourselves jointly and severally our and each of our heirs, executors and administrators firmly by these presents sealed with our seals dated the fifth day of May A.D. Eighteen Hundred Thirty One. Now the condition of this obligation is such that if the above bound Samuel H. Carpenter who has been duly elected treasurer of the said Danville and Pottsville Rail Road Company…truly perform the duties of said office of Treasurer and at the termination of his Treasurership transfer and deliver over to his successor in office all books and effects belonging to the said company which shall have come into his possession and Treasurer of said company then this obligation to be void or else remain in full form…”. With construction beginning in 1826 to open the coal reserves north of the Broad Mountain in the Shenandoah and Mahanoy valleys, the Danville-Pottsville Rail Road ran from Mount Carbon to Wadesville and then to Mill Creek Gap in Pennsylvania. Girard had laid the plans for the rail road, even importing English iron for the rails. His death in 1831, however, virtually stopped investment in the project and construction was halted. In the end, the western section of the construction was obtained by Pennsylvania Railroad and the eastern part by the Reading system. This is a very early mention of railroads, as the Baltimore and Ohio was chartered in 1827. The letter is in good condition, with Girard’s elderly signature rather faint; there are professional repairs to improve the fold separations.

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