Monte Cristo Railway Co. signed by Charles Sanger Mellen - Stock Certificate
Inv# AG1934A Stock
Stock signed twice by Charles Sanger Mellen. On the front as president and on the transfer on the back. Historic railroad! Rare!
Charles Sanger Mellen (1852-1927) Charles Sanger Mellen was an American railroad man whose career culminated in the presidencies of the Northern Pacific Railway 1897-1903 and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad 1903-1913. Mellen was born in Lowell, Mass. His family soon moved to Concord, N.H. where he attended high school. Rather than attending college, he began his railroad career as a clerk at the Northern New Hampshire Railroad in Concord in 1870. After a short time at the Central Vermont Railroad and back to the Northern New Hampshire Railroad, he moved to the Boston and Lowell Railroad (B&L) where he was promoted to Superintendent. The Boston and Lowell enjoyed revenues from leasing use of its lines into Boston to the Boston and Maine Railroad. Its policies led the B&M to build its own line into Boston and to fight with the B&L to the New Hampshire courts. Mellen was the President of the B&L when it lost its court case, and ceased independent operations in 1887 when it was leased to the Boston and Maine Railroad.
In 1892, he became general manager of the New York and New England Railroad, during a time when it was engaged in a bitter war with the New Haven. Charles P. Clark, the New Haven's president, hired him away from his competitor in November 1892. Mellen later testified that "[Clark] said I was too much of a nuisance on the New England." Mellen came to the attention of J. P. Morgan when he drove such a hard bargain with the New York Central that Chauncey Depew complained to Morgan, a director of both the New Haven and the New York Central. Morgan's bank had become receiver of the Northern Pacific in August 1893. Mellen had an active role in the reorganization and became president of the NP when it emerged from receivership in 1896. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanger_Mellen
A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.
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