Chicago: (ICRR, ca. 1855. Item #466

Broadside sheet. 280 x 195 mm., [11 x 8 /12 inches].  Printed on blue paper, folded, brown stain in center portion of the sheet, otherwise quite a good, sound copy.

Rare ICRR broadside containing instructions to their agents regarding freight, accounts and passenger business, with emphasis on recording and submitting Monthly Reports on all activities at their stations.  It is signed by R. B. Mason, General Sup’t and though undated, is from the early 1850’s. Col. Roswell B. Mason was associated with the Illinois Central Rail Road from its inception, overseeing construction of the line from 1852 to 1856,  until he resigned in 1869 to become Mayor of Chicago.  He was mayor during the fire of 1871 and used his power to declare martial law in its immediate aftermath. 

It is known that Abraham Lincoln served as counsel for Illinois Central in the early 1850s, earning a fee of $5,000, that occasion a law suit for nonpayment. 

Rare: this broadside in not among the Illinois Central Rail Road publications of the 1850s listed in OCLC. Not in Checklist of Ante-Fire Imprints 1851-1871. Not in Byrd, Cecil B.  Bibliography of Illinois Imprints 1814-1858, although three similar broadsides issued by Roswell Mason as General Superintendent are cited, published in 1852 (2) and 1855 (1), all of which are in single copies at the Chicago Historical Society.

Price: $475.00