Description:

Abner Doubleday
New York, NY, June 21, 1853
Civil War General & Postwar Leader of Black Troops Abner Doubleday Signs Stock Certificate
Partially printed DS

ABNER DOUBLEDAY, Partially Printed Endorsement Signed, June 21, 1853, [New York, NY] on Stock Certificate No. 751, June 21, 1853. 2 pp., 8.675" x 6.5". Expected folds; general toning.

Army officer Abner Doubleday signs this certificate for 50 shares of stock in the Florence and Keyport Company. Both Abner and his brother Ulysses Doubleday were listed among the stockholders in an 1853 promotional pamphlet for the company.

Chartered by the State of New Jersey in 1846, the Florence and Keyport Company was created to establish the towns of Florence on the Delaware River and Keyport on Raritan Bay and to construct and operate a toll road between them. The purpose was to open "a main straight route" from New York to the South that could compete with the railway that had a monopoly on traffic from New York to Philadelphia. By establishing a plank road, the company hoped to convince the legislature of New Jersey of the necessity of a rail line on the same route, despite the earlier grant of monopoly.

Excerpts
"This is to Certify, that Abner Doubleday U.S.A. is entitled to Fifty (50) Shares in the Capital Stock of The Florence and Keyport Company...."
[Verso:]
"For Value received, I hereby sell, assign, and set over to the within named Fifty Shares in the Capital Stock of THE FLORENCE and KEYPORT COMPANY, and do by these presents irrevocably constitute and appoint my true and lawful Attorney for me and in my name to transfer the same to him on the books of the agency at New York. Witness my hand and seal, this 21st day of June 1853.
"Abner Doubleday (L.S.)"

Abner Doubleday (1819-1893) was born in New York and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1842, after which he became a career military officer. In 1852, he married Mary Hewitt (1823-1907) of Baltimore. In 1858, Doubleday was assigned to Fort Moultrie in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, and his wife Mary was allowed to live there with him. By the beginning of 1861, Doubleday was one of three captains under the command of Major Robert Anderson among the U.S. forces there. After the surrender of Fort Sumter, Doubleday was promoted to major and commanded the artillery department in the Shenandoah Valley and then that of a division of the Army of the Potomac. He was promoted to brigadier general in February 1862. He commanded troops at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, but his men saw little action at Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. His forces fiercely opposed a Confederate advance on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, and Doubleday was wounded in the neck on the second day of the battle. For the remainder of the war, he directed a portion of the defenses of Washington, helping to repel Confederate General Jubal Early's attack in July 1864. After the war, he mustered out of the volunteer service and became colonel of the 35th U.S. Infantry in 1867. He was stationed in San Francisco from 1869 to 1871 and then commanded the 24th U.S. Infantry, an African-American regiment, in Texas until retiring in 1873. He worked as a lawyer in New York City in the 1870s and published two reminiscences of the Civil War in 1876 and 1882. He became a prominent member of the Theosophical Society in New Jersey and became the president of the American branch in 1879. Fifteen years after his death, the Mills Commission declared that Doubleday had invented the game of baseball at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839, although Doubleday never made such a claim, and it has been debunked by sports historians.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 8.675" x 6.5"
  • Medium: Partially printed DS

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