Acts, charters and law

About these books

Every line began with an act

Most of the early railway companies came into being by a special act, passed by a state legislature or, in Britain, by Parliament. The act named the company, fixed its capital, set out the route it might take and gave it the power to take land along the way. A change of route meant going back for another act, so a company of any age gathered a small shelf of them.

On February 19, 1846 the Joint Special Committee on Railways and Canals reported to the Massachusetts Senate on the petition of the Boston and Maine Rail-road Corporation, “praying for liberty to change their route in Andover”. The bill that came with it lets the company build a new line from the south end of the Thompson Curve, down the valley of the Shawshine River and along the right bank of the Merrimack. Other companies printed their founding papers with the by-laws the stockholders adopted, as the Troy and Rutland did in 1850 with its articles of association.

The law books gather the acts state by state: the laws of Iowa on corporations for rail road purposes, printed in 1853, and the yearly Acts and Resolves of the General Court of Massachusetts. Then come the fights. In 1849 the Vermont and Canada Rail Road Company printed its remonstrance against the bill to incorporate the Champlain Railway, and the petitions, evidence and speeches put before committees sit here with the acts they argued over.