Proceedings of Sundry Citizens of Baltimore

[BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD]

Proceedings of Sundry Citizens of Baltimore, convened for the Purpose of Devising the Most Efficient Means Of Improving the Intercourse between that City and the Western States.

Baltimore: printed by William Wooddy, 1827

Octavo. Pp. [1-]38. (Browned and spotted throughout, title torn, holed and laid-down, blank margins of four leaves with small sections lacking [no loss to text]).

Stitched in old plain wove paper wrappers (browned and spotted).

A poor copy of a rare pamphlet recording the meeting that resulted in the formation of the Baltimore and Ohio R. R. Co.: the last copy listed as having sold at auction sold for $100 in 1969, and there is currently only one other (nicer) copy for sale (at $750).

"In the early 1800’s when canal navigation was heaping trade on Philadelphia and New York, apparently to the detriment of Baltimore, a committee of citizens, including Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Isaac McKim, Thomas Ellicott, and others, met to discuss the situation. Out of their discussion, among others, grew the first germ for the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to the Ohio, namely, the present Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The committee gives an elaborate report on the per mile cost of the proposed railway, the advantages that would accrue to the state of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan; it also refers optimistically to the Quincy [Mass.] Railroad, a three-mile route which had but recently been built."(Decker)

"Two men — Philip E. Thomas and George Brown — were the pioneers of the [Baltimore and Ohio R.R. Co.].... They spent the year 1826 investigating railway enterprises in England, which were at that time being tested in a comprehensive fashion as commercial ventures. Their investigation completed, they held an organizational meeting on February 12, 1827, including about twenty-five citizens, most of whom were Baltimore merchants or bankers. Chapter 123 of the 1826 Session Laws of Maryland, passed February 28, 1827, and the Commonwealth of Virginia on March 8, 1827, chartered the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, with the task of building a railroad from the port of Baltimore west to a suitable point on the Ohio River. The railroad, formally incorporated April 24, was intended to provide not only an alternative to, but also a faster route for Midwestern goods to reach the East Coast than the seven-year-old, hugely successful, but slow Erie Canal across upstate New York. Thomas was elected as the first president and Brown the treasurer. The capital of the proposed company was fixed at five million dollars,  but the B&O was initially capitalized in 1827 with a three million dollar issue of stock. Virtually every citizen of Baltimore owned a share, as the offering was oversubscribed.' (wikipedia)

Howes b84; Sabin 3059; T.R. Thomson Check list of Publications on American Railroads before 1841 130.