Florida East Coast Drainage and Sugar Company - Florida 1899

Unique stock certificate from the Florida East Coast Drainage and Sugar Company issued in 1899. This historic document was printed by the W.M. Main Company and has an ornate border around it. This item has the handsigned signatures of the Company’s President, James S. Murray, and Treasurer, Guy R. Pride, and is over 112 years old. The certificate was issued to Rufus E. Rose and is endorsed by him on the back.

The Beet Sugar Gazette - 1901.

The Florida East Coast Drainage and Sugar Company owns, by concession and purchase, 800,000 acres of land in the Everglades, and purposes to drain the territory and plant sugar ca'ne. Crops averaging forty tons to the acre have been raised on similar soil, 136 miles north of these lands. The.company expects to produce 16,000,000 pounds of granulated sugar per year. The directorate of the company contains the names of J. R. Parrott, vice-president and general manager of the Florida East Coast Railway; James E. Ingraham, second vice-president of the same road; E. M. Ashley of Lockport. N. Y.; James M. Schumacher, president of the First National Bank of Florida; Guy R. Pride, ice manufacturer. Jacksonville; James S. Murray, before mentioned, and Rufus E. Rose, state chemist and president State Agricultural Society, of Tallahassee, Fla. The capitalization of the company is $5,000,000.