NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD COMPANY
NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD COMPANY RECORDS, 1849 - 1952
Accession information! See series note below.
Schedule reference» None
Arrangement» See Table of Contents, page 3.
Finding Aid prepared byt Maurice S. Toler
Date! October 27, 19^4
The construction and operation of the North Carolina Railroad was an
important factor in the developnent of North Carolina. When the General
Assembly authorized the chartering of the Road on January 27,
1849»
the
state badly needed a rail connection between the eastern and western parts
of the state. ^
As early as 1833 efforts had been made to have the state finance a
system of railroad transportation. It was in that year that the first
comprehensive plan was submitted to the General Assembly. It was defeated
largely because of lack of unity among the different sections of the state.
Attempts were made in succeeding legislative sessions to get state support
for railroad construction. Finally, at the 1848 session, a compromise
between the two dominant political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats,
made possible the passage of the North Carolina Railroad bill, or the Ashe
bill, so named after its sponsor, W.S. Ashe, a Democrat of New Hanover
County.
The road was to run from the vicinity of Goldsboro to Charlotte, or, in
the words of the chartering Act, " . from the Wilmington and Raleigh
Rail Road where the same passes over Neuse River, in the County of Wayne,
via Raleigh, and thence by the most practicable route, via Salisbury, in the
County of Rowan, to the Town of Charlotte, in the County of Mecklenburg."12
In order to finance construction of the road, the 1849 Act authorized
the state to subscribe to $2,000,000 worth of the original stock and private
oitizens purchased the remainder, valued at $1,000,000.* Later, when the
company ran short of funds in
1854»
the General Assembly authorized the pur¬
chase of an additional $1,000,000 of stock. 4
To begin construction of the road with the proper ceremony, "an
official breaking of ground was held in Greensboro on July 11, 1851. This
ceremony, performed before the stockholders of the company and a large
company of others, had for its officiating leader Calvin Graves, who had
cast the deoiding vote for the charter in the Senate. "5 Actual work on the
1Laws of North Carolina, 1848-1849, chapter 82, pp.
138-159»
2 Ibid. , p. 140.
5Ibid., pp. 145-144, 155.
4 Ibid., I854-I855, chapter 32, pp. 64-65.
5Cecil Kenneth Brown, A State Movement in Railroad Development (Chapel
Hilli The University of North Carolina Press, 1928), p. 77*
