New-York and Harlem Rail Road Co. issued to and signed by August Belmont and Robert Schuyler dated 1848-1852 - Autographed Stocks and Bonds

Stock issued to and signed by August Belmont on back. Signed by Robert Schuyler as president. Available with signature of Belmont x'd out on back for $60.

August Belmont (1813-1890) August Belmont, Sr. immigrated to New York City in 1837 after becoming the American representative of the Rothschild family's banking house in Frankfurt. He attended the Jewish Junior and Senior High School in Frankfurt until he began his apprentice for the Rothschild’s. He would sweep floors, polish furniture, and run errands for the Rothschild’s, while also studying English, arithmetic, and writing. During the Panic of 1837, nearly 250 businesses, including the Rothschild agents, had collapsed. As a result, Belmont began the August Belmont & Company, believing that he could replace the defunct American Agency with his company. It was an instant success, and Belmont was able to straighten out the Rothschild interests in the United States between 1837 and 1842. In 1844, Belmont was named the consul-general of Austria at New York in an attempt to strengthen his business position. He resigned in 1850 in response to what he viewed as Austria's cruel treatment of Hungary. After marrying Caroline Slidell Perry on November 7, 1849 as well as becoming a U.S. citizen, his wife's uncle John Slidell became interested in Belmont, a Democrat, unlike most of his business acquaintances, saw him as an able and enthusiastic protégé. Belmont was originally asked by Slidell to campaign for James Buchanan. Belmont accepted, although Franklin Pierce ended up winning the nomination. Belmont later supported Pierce and gave him large contributions despite being on the receiving end of political attacks. After Pierce's victory in the 1852 election, he appointed Belmont chargé d'affaires for the United States, as well as the American minister at the same place due to his generous contributions to Pierce's campaign. As a delegate to the Democratic Convention of 1860, he supported Stephen A. Douglas. He was named the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee the same year in Baltimore. He energetically supported the Union cause during the Civil War, and exerted a strong influence in favour of the North upon the merchants and financiers of England and France. An avid sportsman, the famed Belmont Stakes thoroughbred horse race is named in his honor. Also named in his honor is the town of Belmont, New Hampshire - an honor Mr. Belmont never acknowledged. He died in New York in 1890 and a volume entitled Letters, Speeches and Addresses of August Belmont (the elder) was published at New York. He left between 10 and 50 million dollars for his wife and children.

Robert Schuyler Few chieftains of American finance have fallen as far and as fast as Robert Schuyler. In the early 1850s Schuyler achieved fame as “America’s first railroad king,” then infamy as the perpetrator of its first massive stock fraud. By 1853 he had been president of five roads—the Illinois Central, New York and Harlem, New York and New Haven, Renssalaer and Saratoga, and Sangamon and Morgan—most of them simultaneously; he had been instrumental in building the Vermont Valley and the Washington and Saratoga, and in the promotion and administration of the Housatonic, Naugatuck, New Haven and Northampton, and Saratoga and Whitehall. A scion of a blue-blooded New York family that counted Alexander Hamilton among its ancestors, he was widely admired and trusted. Ironically, it was Schuyler’s wide-ranging involvements that proved his undoing. In his capacity as transfer agent of the New York and New Haven, beginning in October 1853 he issued some $2 million in unauthorized stock, diverting the proceeds to other railroad ventures he was juggling. In the past he had covered up similar over-issues on a much smaller scale by buying back and retiring the over-issued shares. This time, though, events spun out of his control; the irregularities became public at the beginning of July 1854, Schuyler fled to Canada under threat of arrest, then to Europe, where he died in disgrace in November 1855. Schuyler’s defalcations were genuinely sensational, sending shock waves through the realms of finance and high society; one contemporary reaction was that the “Schuyler fraud fell like a thousand bombshells, or hissed like a million fiery flying serpents in Wall-street,” and a newspaper editorialized, “if Robert Schuyler is capable of such a wrong, then no one is to be trusted.” The New York and New Haven would eventually lose nearly $1.8 million redeeming the spurious stock. So strong was society’s condemnation that the Schuyler’s name was virtually excised from the historical record for decades.

The New York and Harlem Railroad (now the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line) was one of the first railroads in the United States, and was the world's first street railway. Designed by John Stephenson, it was opened in stages between 1832 and 1852 between Lower Manhattan to and beyond Harlem. Horses initially pulled railway carriages, followed by a conversion to steam engines, then one to battery-powered Julien electric traction cars. In 1907 the then leaseholders of the line, New York City Railway, a streetcar operator, went into receivership. Following a further receivership in 1932 the New York Railways Corporation converted the line to bus operation. The Murray Hill Tunnel now carries a lane of road traffic, but not the buses. The line became part of the New York Central Railroad system with trackage rights granted to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad into Manhattan. It is now part of the Metro-North Railroad system, and the only Manhattan trackage of that system. The company was incorporated on April 25, 1831 as the New York and Harlem Railroad, to link New York City with suburban Harlem. Among the company's founders was John Mason, a wealthy banker and president of Chemical Bank who was among the largest landowners in New York City. They decided to build their railroad on the eastern side of Manhattan Island, convinced that it would never be able to compete with steamboat traffic on the Hudson River. The first section, along Bowery from Prince Street north to 14th Street, opened on November 26, 1832. After that, the following sections opened: June 10, 1833 - north along Fourth Avenue to 32nd Street May 9, 1834 - north along Fourth Avenue to Yorkville, including the Murray Hill Tunnel October 26, 1837 - north along Fourth Avenue to Harlem, including the Yorkville Tunnel May 4, 1839 - south along Bowery, Broome Street and Centre Street to City Hall at Centre Street and Park Row September 3, 1842 - north to Williamsbridge December 1, 1844 - north to White Plains June 1, 1847 - north to Croton Falls December 31, 1848 - north to Dover Plains January 19, 1852 - north to Chatham Four Corners with a connection to the Albany and West Stockbridge Railroad, and trackage rights northwest to Albany November 26, 1852 - south along Park Row to Astor House at Park Row and Broadway A freight branch was built to Port Morris, from the 1853 purchase of the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad and abandoned late in the 20th century. Parts are still visible. Between 1847 and 1856, a track was built in Grand Street between Centre Street and Bowery (along with one block on the Bowery) for northbound trains. Southbound trains continued to use the old route. In 1864 or 1865, a branch was added for trains between downtown and the East 34th Street Ferry Landing, running along 32nd Street, Lexington Avenue and 34th Street. This was the start of separate horse car service, running between Astor House and the ferry. Grand Central Depot opened just north of 42nd Street in October 1871, and intercity passenger trains from the north were ended there. (Coincidentally, by this point, the first of the Manhattan New York elevated train services, the direct ancestor of the subways, had opened on Ninth Avenue.) Freight trains continued to operate along the tracks south of Grand Central, as did streetcars (still turning off at 42nd Street). As of 2017, Metro-North operates commuter passenger service from Grand Central Terminal, via Southeast (change from electric to diesel power), to Wassaic. The trackless right-of-way from Wassaic to Chatham is being converted to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. As in other early railroads, the dominant propulsion in the railroad's early years was horse power. In 1837, steam engines were introduced, but their use was limited to areas outside of the heavily settled parts of the city, which was then north of 23rd Street. The New York City Common Council passed an ordinance on December 27, 1854, to take effect in 18 months, barring the NY&H from using steam power south of 42nd Street, due to complaints by persons whose property abutted the right-of-way. Before that, the steam locomotives had run to 32nd Street. When the ordinance took effect, the NY&H had not done anything. After much debate, including an injunction issued preventing the city from enforcing the ordinance, the courts struck down the injunction on July 30, 1858. In 1864, the railroad was purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt, who consolidated it five years later with the Hudson River Railroad to form the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, a precursor of the much larger New York Central Railroad. On July 2, 1870, horsecars started to run not only to the 34th Street Ferry but to 73rd Street via Madison Avenue. These trains ran through the Murray Hill Tunnel and turned west on 42nd before going north on Madison (northbound cars used Vanderbilt Avenue to 44th Street). The line was soon extended to 86th Street and then to Harlem. On April 1, 1873, the NY&H leased its freight lines to the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, but the horsecar line south of Grand Central remained separate. This eventually became the New York Central Railroad and then part of Penn Central and Conrail. Metro-North Railroad took over the line in 1983. The first electric streetcar open to passengers in New York City, a Julien electric traction car, was run on September 17, 1888 on the line to 86th Street. The line went back to using horses for a time, but switched to a "below-grade third rail" (commonly called a "conduit") in 1897. The New York City Railway, which leased the Metropolitan, and hence also these lines, went into receivership on September 24, 1907. The receivers returned operation of the Fourth Avenue line back to the Metropolitan Street Railway on July 31, 1908. The lease was terminated on January 31, 1920 with operation was returned to the NY&H. On October 10, 1932, it was leased again, this time to the New York Railways Corporation, with the right to convert the line to bus operation. The stockholders voted to do this on February 19, 1934. An approximation of the route is now traveled by NYCT Bus's M1 bus. The Murray Hill Tunnel now carries a lane of roadway, but not the buses.

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