Promontory Ranch Co. - 1898-1908 dated Autographed Stocks and Bonds

Stock printed on pink paper and small size measures 9 1/4" x 4" without stub. San Francisco, California. Many available signed by members of C.F. Crocker family.

Charles Crocker (September 16, 1822 – August 14, 1888) was an American railroad executive who was one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, which constructed the westernmost portion of the first transcontinental railroad, and took control with partners of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Crocker was born in Troy, New York on September 16, 1822. He was the son of Eliza (née Wright) and Isaac Crocker, a modest family. They joined the nineteenth-century migration west and moved to Indiana when he was 14, where they had a farm. Crocker soon became independent, working on several farms, a sawmill, and at an iron forge.

At the age of 23, in 1845, he founded a small, independent iron forge of his own. He used money saved from his earnings to invest later in the new railroad business after moving to California, which had become a boom state since the Gold Rush. His older brother Edwin B. Crocker had become an attorney by the time Crocker was investing in railroads. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Crocker

Charles Frederick Crocker (December 26, 1854 – July 17, 1897) was vice president of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and a member of the wealthy Crocker family. He was born in Sacramento on December 26, 1854, the eldest son of Mary Ann and Charles Crocker. He was educated in Sacramento public schools, graduated from Oakland Military Academy in 1872 and attended the Brooklyn Polytechnic School (1875), but did not graduate as a result of poor eyesight. After taking a trip to Japan, Crocker entered the family railroad business at the age of 22 as a clerk in the Fourth and Townsend Streets office of Southern Pacific. When George C. Perkins was elected governor in 1879, he appointed Crocker as a colonel in the National Guard. By 1888, Crocker was president of the San Joaquin and Sierra Nevada Railroad. Crocker purchased the 'Uplands' estate (then part of San Mateo and later incorporated into Hillsborough) from William Henry Howard in 1894. Crocker died at 'Uplands' on July 17, 1897, from complications of Bright's Disease following a brief, acute paralysis. His wife, the former Jennie Marine Easton, had died during the birth of their third child.

Crocker was survived by three children: Mary Crocker (who would later marry the congressman Francis Burton Harrison), Charles Templeton Crocker (who became a noted scientist), and Jennie Adeline Crocker. Crocker was notably active in public affairs, serving as one of the Regents of the University of California (appointed in 1888 by Governor Waterman), as president of the California Academy of Sciences, and as a trustee of Stanford University. Crocker's brothers were banker and investor William H. Crocker, president of the Crocker Bank and George Crocker, second vice-president of the Southern Pacific Railroad. His cousin was the mystic, princess and author Aimee Crocker. His uncle Edwin B. Crocker built Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum.

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