Records of The Carrabelle, Tallahassee and Georgia Railroad Company, railway company, Florida, United States of America

• Trustees Minute Book, 1892-1903;

• Photocopy of published volume, Clark Syndicate Companies in Florida, c1894.

The Carrabelle, Tallahassee and Georgia Railroad Company was formed in 1891  and organised under the laws of the State of Florida. It was incorporated with a capital stock of 1,000,000 US dollars and a land grant of 206,370.30 acres. The Scottish investors in the railroad came predominantly from Paisley and Glasgow and included members of the Clark and Coats families of the firms of J & P Coats Ltd, thread manufacturers, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland and Clark & Co Ltd, thread manufacturers, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland.

William Clark of the Clark Thread Works, Newark, New Jersey was president. The railroad was completed in 1894  and began at Tallahassee, passed through the southern half of Leon County, entirely through Wakulla County and across James Island, terminating at Carrabelle. Sometime after 1903, the railroad company was sold to the Georgia, Florida & Alabama Railway Company. The railroad company was one of four companies operated by the Clark Syndicate in Florida, which opened up the whole southern half of Leon and the coast beyond into industrial centres, and for farming.

The directors of the Syndicate were William Clark of the Clark Thread Works, Newark, New Jersey; Robert Cumming and R B Symington (both of Geo A Clark & Brother, New York); Charles M Zeh of Newark, New Jersey; F T Myers of Tallahasse, Florida; C P Simmons of 29 Broadway, New York; John M Murray of Glasgow; and W A Simmons of New York. The Trustees in Scotland were D W Kidston and J M Murray, chartered accountants, who worked at the company office in St Vincent Street. The other companies operated by the Clark Syndicate were: Georgia and Florida Investment Company, that owned 175,000 acres of valuable timber and agricultural land along the line of the newly completed railroad, together with several large saw mills, planing mill, dry kiln, stores etc; Gulf Terminal and Navigation Company, that owned and operated a daily steamboat line of 60 miles from Carrabelle to Apalachicola and return, a weekly line of 300 miles from the ports to St Andrew, Pensacola and Mobile on the Gulf of Mexico, in connection with the railroad, and various steamboats and barges in connection with the Terminal business of the railroad at Carrabelle; Scottish Land and Improvement Company that owned the new settlements of Hilliardville, Arran, Sopchoppy and Lanark on the line of the new railroad, together with a waterfront of four miles, and a large and commodious hotel at Lanark on the Gulf.

Chronological

Open

Deposit : Stephen Foster of Grant Thornton, c2005

None.

None known

None

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Reproduction subject to usual conditions: educational use and condition of documents

This material has been appraised in line with standard GB 0248 procedures

Previously in the offices of Grant Thornton, chartered accountants, Glasgow

None expected

GB 0248 UGD 199/5: Records of George A Clark & Brother, thread manufacturers, Newark, New Jersey, USA

This material is original

No known publications using this material

Description compiled in line with the following international standards: International Council on Archives,ISAD(G) Second Edition, September 1999 and National Council on Archives,Rules for the construction of personal, place and corporate names

Scotland is the location of all place names in the administrative/biographical history element, unless otherwise stated.

Fonds level description compiled by Jennifer Reade, Graduate Trainee, 29 May 2007. Converted to Encoded Archival Description by Jennifer Reade, Archives Assistant, 29 May 2007. Edited by Gemma Tougher, Assistant Archivist (Cataloguing), 14 January 2013.