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Description:
Beautifully engraved certificate from the Office of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company issued in 1868. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of a train station, passage down the canal and a train passing under a bridge. This item is hand signed by the Company’s President ( Captain Robert F. Stockton )and Treasurer ( Richard Stockton ) and is over 134 years old. The certificate was issued to Mary D. Biddle.
Certificate Vignette Railroad engineering pioneer Robert L. Stevens built the first railroad connection between the then two most important commercial and population centers of the young nation, Philadelphia and New York. Chartered by New Jersey in 1830, his Camden & Amboy Railroad was built in conjunction with partner Captain Robert F. Stockton’s canal company joining the Delaware and Raritan rivers. (The two companies soon formally merged and became what was commonly known as the “Joint Companies.”) The rail line, located within New Jersey, was connected from its terminals at Camden and Perth Amboy to Philadelphia and New York respectively by the company’s own steam ferry boats. By the time the canal and railroad were both completed in 1834, a trip between New York and Philadelphia had been cut to about nine hours. Captain Robert F. Stockton, USN (1795-1866) Robert Field Stockton was born in Princeton, New Jersey, on 20 August 1795. He was appointed a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy at the age of sixteen, serving at sea and ashore during the War of 1812. After that conflict, Lieutenant Stockton was assigned to ships operating in the Mediterranean, in the Caribbean and off the coast of West Africa. While on the latter station, he helped negotiate a treaty that led to the founding of the state of Liberia. During the later 1820s and into the 1830s, he primarily devoted his attention to business affairs in New Jersey. In 1838, Stockton resumed active Naval service as a Captain. He served in the European area, but took leave in 1840 to undertake political work. Offered the post of Secretary of the Navy by President John Tyler in 1841, he declined the offer, but worked successfully to gain support for the construction of an advanced steam warship with a battery of very heavy guns. This ship became USS Princeton (1843-1849), the Navy's first screw-propelled steamer, whose construction he oversaw and which he commanded when she was completed in 1843. Captain Stockton was absolved of responsibility for the February 1844 explosion of a gun on board the ship that killed two cabinet officers and several others. With the temporary title of Commodore, Stockton commanded Naval forces in the Eastern Pacific, and was instrumental in taking California from Mexico in 1846-47. Captain Stockton resigned from the Navy in May 1850 and returned to business and political pursuits. He served as a U.S. Senator from New Jersey in 1851-53, during which time he sponsored a bill to abolish flogging as a Navy punishment. After leaving the Senate, Stockton remained active in business and politics. In 1861 he was a delegate to the unsuccessful conference that attempted to settle the secession crisis. In 1863, he was appointed to command the New Jersey militia when the Confederate Army invaded Pennsylvania. Captain Robert F. Stockton died at Princeton on 7 October 1866. Four U.S. Navy ships have been named in honor of Robert F. Stockton: USS Stockton (Torpedo Boat # 32), 1901-1916; USS Stockton (DD-73), 1917-1940; USS Stockton (DD504), cancelled in 1941 before construction began; and USS Stockton (DD646), 1943-1973. During the early nineteenth century, when the United States entered into the industrial revolution, canals were built as transportation routes to link resources, manufacturing centers and markets. The D&R Canal was built across central New Jersey to provide an efficient and safe route for transporting freight between Philadelphia and New York. Since boats could navigate the Delaware River to Bordentown and the Raritan River to New Brunswick, those two cities were selected as the canal's two terminuses. To supply water to the main canal at its highest elevation in Trenton, a feeder canal was dug from Bull's Island on the Delaware River south to Trenton. Construction of the Delaware and Raritan Canal began in 1830. Laborers - the majority of whom are believed to have been migratory Irish immigrants - were hired to dig, mostly by hand, the main canal and its feeder. The main canal was 44 miles long, 75 feet wide and 7 feet deep. The feeder was 22 miles long, 50 feet wide and 6 feet deep. The canal system was completed in 1834 at an estimated cost of $2,830,000. The Feeder Canal Although the feeder canal originally was designed to supply water to the main canal, it was navigated by cargo vessels from the time of its completion. Changes to the feeder canal were made to allow vessels from Pennsylvania's Delaware Division Canal to lock into the feeder canal at Lambertville. Canal boats and barges were pulled by mule teams at first. Steam-powered ships were introduced on the canal around 1843. Transporting Coal For nearly a century after it opened, the Delaware and Raritan Canal was one of America's busiest navigation canals. Its peak years were the 1860s and 1870s when Pennsylvania coal was transported through the Delaware and Raritan Canal to feed the city of New York's industrial boom. During this period, 80% of the total cargo carried on the canal was coal. At the same time that construction began on the canal, a railroad route through the central part of the state was also under construction. One year later, in 1831, the canal company and the railroad company merged forming "The Joint Companies." This merger provided protection against competition for both the canal and the railroad. In 1855, the Belvidere-Delawa
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