Tonica & Petersburg Railroad

State: Illinois

The Illinois General Assembly incorporated the Tonica & Petersburg Railroad Company on January 15, 1857. The act of incorporation authorized the company to construct a railroad commencing at Tonica, Illinois, running through points in the counties of Putnam, Marshall, Woodford, Tazewell, Menard, and Cass, and terminating at Jacksonville, Illinois. The original board of directors consisted of nine men, including Illinois politician Richard Yates as president of the company. After raising funds through selling public stocks, the railroad became embroiled in a number of lawsuits. Between 1857 and 1860, the firm of Lincoln & Herndon was involved in seven cases involving the railroad--Abraham Lincoln and his partner William H. Herndon defending the company four times and suing it three times. In December 1862, the company's stockholders voted to consolidate the Tonica & Petersburg Railroad with the Jacksonville, Alton & Saint Louis Railroad. The two companies merged to form a new corporation called the Saint Louis, Jacksonville & Chicago Railroad Company.

“An Act to Incorporate the Tonica and Petersburg Railroad Company,” 15 January 1857, Private Laws of Illinois (1857), 9-16; Saint Louis, Jacksonville and Chicago Railroad: Consolidation of the Tonica & Petersburg, and Jacksonville, Alton & Saint Louis Railroads ([Springfield, IL], n.p., [1863], 17-38; Dan W. Bannister, Lincoln and the Illinois Supreme Court (Springfield, IL: Dan W. Bannister, 1995), 74-77; Robert P. Howard, Mostly Good and Competent Men: Illinois Governors, 1818-1988 (Springfield, IL: Illinois Issues, Sangamon State University and Illinois State Historical Society, 1988), 123-24; David Donald, Lincoln's Herndon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), 42-43; Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln: A Brief Insight (New York: Sterling, 2009), 54; For Lincoln & Herndon's cases involving the railroad, search "Tonica & Petersburg RR," Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition , 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org.