Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad Co. signed by Russell Sage - Stock Certificate

Russell Sage (1816-1906) Banker; Financier; U.S. Congressman.  As the originator of "put and call options", Sage greatly changed the way speculators played the stock market. Among America's most powerful and wealthy bankers, he financed Jay Gould and made a vast fortune on the latter's stock manipulations. "Sage was one of the shrewdest and most conservative of all great financiers."  At one time he is said to have had $27,000,000 out on call loans. At the time of his death he left a fortune worth an estimated $70,000,000.

Sage was born in the Mohawk Valley and came to Troy to work in his brother’s dry goods store. He became an important figure in Troy, elected to several offices. But he soon expanded beyond Troy. His first wife, Maria, was an Emma Willard graduate but died early and childless. He sought another wife who might be another Emma graduate and whose family would give him proper credentials. His second wife was Margaret Olivia Slocum, who fit all his requirements. They moved to New York City, to a mansion on 5th Avenue, and Russell became allied with Jay Gould. Together they were part of a group which the history books call "robber barons". The Sage-Gould duo bought railroads all over America, including the famous elevated railroad in NYC. They became big investors in the stock market, where it is said Sage invented "puts" and "calls". Sage died in the early 1900’s as perhaps the "19th wealthiest American ever", according to a Fortune publication of the "100 richest" people ever in the American millennium craze pre-2000.

Sage died childless, leaving his widow, Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, the wealthiest woman in America. She chose to be buried in Syracuse with her parents, but was noted as a major philanthropist nation-wide. It has been said that she endowed causes and institutions which her husband would have opposed, such as higher education in general and education for females. A major national cartoon from the early 1900’s shows "Uncle Sam" behind a bank teller’s window, collecting the first national income tax payments. First in line is Russell Sage, a well-known miser, having a hard time getting his payment out of his pocket. Behind him is Hetty Green, another famous miser, known as "the Witch of Wall Street". Last in line is Jay Gould, Russell Sage’s colleague. All are very unhappy to be paying the U. S. any money. Sage’s wife, Margaret, buried him in a Greco-Roman mausoleum by himself, without his name on it, and with a Medusa’s head, snakes and all, carved on a small marble bench next to the mausoleum.

The Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad (CH&D) was a railroad based in the U.S. state of Ohio that existed between its incorporation on March 2, 1846, and its acquisition by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in December 1917. (This railroad should not be confused with the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railway, an Ohio interurban of exactly the same name which existed between 1926 and 1930.) It was originally chartered to build from Cincinnati to Hamilton, Ohio, and then to Dayton, a distance of 59 mi (95 km); further construction and acquisition extended the railroad, and by 1902 it owned or controlled 640 mi (1,030 km) of railroad. Its stock and bond value plunged in late 1905 after "financial mismanagement of the properties" was revealed.

The original CH&D was founded by John Alexander Collins, who was born on June 8, 1815 in Staffordshire, England. He came to the US as a child in 1825, and worked as a locomotive engineer until moving to Ohio in 1851 to open the CH&D. Collins remained with the line until 1872, six years before his death in Covington, Kentucky. Collins is buried in Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, where his tombstone details his life and its work.

The railway received a charter from the State of Ohio on March 2, 1846 as the "Cincinnati and Hamilton Railroad". The name was changed by the legislature to the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway on February 8, 1847. Work on the road began in 1850, and by September of that year the right of way had been obtained between Cincinnati and Hamilton, with the right of way between Hamilton and Dayton being sought. The road was graded by this time as well, since iron for the rails had arrived. By May 1851, the entire right of way was purchased and grading along the entire route finished. The first trains ran on September 18, 1851: Two special inaugural trains from Dayton met two special inaugural trains from Cincinnati at Hamilton.

On May 1, 1863, the CH&D leased the Dayton and Michigan Railroad in perpetuity. In 1891, it acquired the Cincinnati, Dayton and Chicago Railroad, while in March of that year it added the Cincinnati, Dayton and Ironton Railroad.

In 1886 the CH&D was among the railroads controlled by the financial speculator Henry S. Ives before his spectacular collapse the following year.

The Dayton and Michigan was the second railroad to reach Lima, Ohio, reaching there in 1858. By 1880, they had established a significant shop facility on the north side of town with over two hundred employees. The Detroit and Michigan had a freight depot west of the tracks and south of East North Street, between North Central Avenue (once Tanner Street) and North Jackson Street. Successor CH&D built a larger structure on the site, which continued to be used by the Baltimore and Ohio at least into the 1950s. The passenger depot followed a similar pattern, but was located farther north, between East Wayne Street and the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks.