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VA - Page County,February 18, 1854 - Virginia Cliff Copper Company, Stock

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:400.00 - 800.00 USD
VA - Page County,February 18, 1854 - Virginia Cliff Copper Company, Stock
Session D is a Mail-Bid Only Auction. Absentee bids will be accepted only. No live bidding will be allowed. All winners will be contacted after the auction. BIDDING ENDS MONDAY JUNE 27 AT 5PM PACIFIC TIME!!!
Incorporated in New York. Cert. #99 issued to David L. Jones for 50 shares. Signed by H.J. (illegible), president , and by N.T. Geaudge, secretary. Vignette at center of rural scene--train going over a bridge , with farm house and horseman below. Black border and print. U/C. Printer: C. Craske, N.Y. 6 1/2 x 10 1/2." In 1854 Samuel and Maria Williams of Brooklyn, New York purchased 21,371 acres of land in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia for $4,750. One year later the land was passed on to the Virginia Cliff Copper Company for $1,000,000, although only $7,000 was ever actually tendered. Soon 5,371 acres of the tract were sold to the newly incorporated (January 1858) Stony Man Mining Company for $550,000 of stockholder funds. In 1866 the Miners Lode Copper Company (incorporated in NYC in 1865) purchased the property--its principal stockholders were Stephen M. Allen and George H. Pollock. Although copper did exist in the area and was mined, it was not commercially successful. By 1889 Pollock and Allen were forced to obtain a $52,000 mortgage to pay their debts. The following year, convinced by Pollock's son George Freeman that the property had value for resort development, Pollock Sr. and Allen incorporated as the Stoneyman Park Preserve Lands, Inc. and began selling mortgage bonds guaranteed by building lots at the new Stoneyman Park Preserve. By the time Pollock Sr. and Allen died in 1893 over thirty building lots (at the future Skyland) had been sold. The lot sales, however, were to no avail for in 1896 the Albemarle County Courts ordered the entire property sold at public auction to satisfy the 1889 mortgage

[Ref:www.nps.gov/shen/historyculture/skyland.htm].