Beautifully engraved uncancelled $1000 Bond certificate from the Buchanan & Clifton Forge Railway Company - Virginia 1877. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with no vignette, small shields in corners, horizontal format, wavy title, bearer coupon, 8%, 30-yr, 1877, due 1907. This item has the signatures of William P. Munford as Secretary and John W. Johnston(Confederate States Major) as president. 58 unused coupons attached on bottom. Light staini in center and some folds.
The Richmond and Alleghany Railroad was built along the James River along the route of the James River and Kanawha Canal from Richmond on the Fall Line at the head of navigation to a point west of Lynchburg near Buchanan, Virginia, and combined with the Buchanan and Clifton Forge Railway Company to reach Clifton Forge, Virginia. In 1887, Confederate States Veteran Major John W. Johnston, father of author Mary Johnston, became the last president of the James River and Kanawha Canal. On the verge of financial collapse, the James River and Kanawha Canal was expected to go bankrupt, however, Major Johnston is credited with the creativity which kept the company afloat until a deal was closed with the Richmond and Alleghany Railway Company to purchase the assets of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company ending its ninety - five year existence, passing into h
The James River Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. State of Virginia. It was formerly part of the CSX Huntington East Division. It became part of the CSX Florence Division on June 20, 2016. The line runs from Gladstone, Virginia to Clifton Forge, Virginia for a total of 110.2 miles. At its east end it continues west from the Rivanna Subdivision and at its west end it continues west as the Alleghany Subdivision.
History
Long a dream of early Virginians such as George Washington, the canal was never completed as envisioned to link the James and Ohio Rivers. Beginning in the 1830s, railroads overtook canals as a preferred technology for transportation in Virginia. The canal was conveyed to the new railroad company by a deed dated March 4, 1880. Railroad construction workers promptly started laying tracks on the towpath. The company constructed the railroad using African-American convict laborers from Virginia penitentiaries.[3]
Led by Francis O. French of New York and later starting in 1884 by James T Closson of New York the new railroad offered a water-level route from Richmond, Virginia to Clifton Forge through the Blue Ridge Mountains at Balcony Falls. In 1888 the railroad was leased, and later purchased, by Collis P. Huntington's Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (merger with C&O occurred in 1889).
Today, the former Richmond and Alleghany Railroad is a major route of CSX Transportation. It forms the Rivanna and James River subdivisions. The eastern terminus is Richmond's Main Street Station. It meets the former Virginia Central Railroad (now operated by the Buckingham Branch Railroad, a short-line operator) at Rivanna Junction.
History making way for the construction of the Richmond and Alleghany Railway along the town path of the James River and Kanawha Canal, the easiest grade from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Seaboard.
Former Confederate major John W. Johnston is the subject of this photographic portrait published in the monthly magazine Confederate Veteran in March 1911. The accompanying article notes that Johnston was wounded three times during the war, and in the postwar years "is interest in Confederate matters was ever constant and warm." Johnston and his wife had six children, among them best-selling novelist Mary Johnston.
Maj John William Johnston
BIRTH 6 Jul 1839
Botetourt County, Virginia, USA
DEATH 21 May 1905 (aged 65)
Richmond City, Virginia, USA
Major Johnston served in Companies I and H of the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment. He was also Captain of the Botetourt Light Artillery of Johnston's Artillery battalion in the Army of Tennessee. This prominent Confederate Veteran did much for the redevelopment of the South after the War. He grew up in his native Botetourt County. The war came when he was a young man. A defender of Vicksburg, he fought in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, finally reaching the end in North Carolina with General Joseph Johnston, his relation. He held the rank of Major at age twenty-five. After the War, he was President of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company. He held the same position for the Buchanan and Clifton Forge Railway Company. He held numerous posts of responsibility in the railway industry. His legal training was earned from the esteemed Judge Brockenbrough of Lexington. Elected to the Senate of Virginia, he served three terms. Johnston was instrumental in the placing of a suitable monument to the famous Botetourt Artillery in 1902. Major Johnston, a man of high character and strict integrity, generous, frank, and brave, made his last home in Richmond.
History from Wikipedia, Rm Smythe and OldCompany.com
