Mississippi Central Railroad Company - Mississippi 1873

Beautiful uncancelled Gold Bond Certificate from the Mississippi Central Railroad Company issued in 1873. This historic document was printed by the Helfenstein, Lewis & Greene Lith. and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of a train passing by a field where slaves are hard at work. This item has been hand signed by the Company’s President, Absolom M. West and Secretary, R. P.Naely and is over 138 years old. 20 coupons attached on bottom.




Certificate Vignette



Mississippi Central Railroad Company (1852-1878 - was chartered in 1852. Construction began in 1853 and the line was completed in 1860, just prior to the Civil War, from Canton, Mississippi to Jackson, Tennessee. The southern terminus of the line connected to the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad at Canton. It also connected to the Memphis and Charleston Railroad at Grand Junction, Tennessee and the Mobile and Ohio Railroad at Jackson, Tennessee. The Mississippi Central was the scene of several military actions from 1862–1863 and was severely damaged during the fighting. Company president, Absolom M. West succeeded in repairing the damage and returning it to operating condition soon after the end of the War. The Mississippi Central line was merged into the Illinois Central Railroad subsidiary Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad in several transactions finally completed in 1878.

Absolom M. West was born in Alabama, where his father Anderson West was a county sheriff. His family obtained Federal land grants in Mississippi and moved to Holmes County, Mississippi, in 1837, where he became a plantation owner. He won election to the State Senate of that state as a Whig in 1847. In 1853 he became an officer of the newly formed Mississippi Central Railroad.

Although initially an opponent of secession, when the American Civil War broke out West became a brigadier general in the Mississippi State Militia. He raised a regiment, and later assumed various administrative offices for the state. Sometimes simultaneously, he served as quartermaster-general, paymaster-general, and commissary-general. At his direction, the legislature established a commission consisting of one lawyer and two businessmen to examine and audit the books and papers of his several offices. At the end of the Civil War, West was the only officer of the state to make a final accounting.

After 1864, West also served as president of the Mississippi Central Railroad, which by that time had been mostly destroyed by the contending armies. After the war, the railroad was sold to the Illinois Central, and West was returned to the State Senate.

Soon thereafter, he was elected to the Federal House of Representatives although he, along with the rest of the unreconstructed Mississippi delegation, was not permitted to be seated. In the years that followed, West established a branch of the National Labor Union, and served as a Democratic elector for President in the election of 1876.

Re-elected to the State Senate, he soon became disenchanted with the Democrats, and joined the Greenback party. For that party and for the Anti-Monopoly Party, West was a candidate for Vice President on the ticket of Benjamin Franklin Butler in 1884.

Absalom M. West died at Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1894.

History from Wikipedia and OldCompany.com (old stock certificate research service).