94 The Financial History of Connecticut. 



however, to relinquish the mortgage/ thus making a gift of the 

 twenty thousand dollars, and it appropriated three thousand dollars 

 a year for the use of the water of the canal for as many years (not 

 exceeding thirty) as it should be kept in operation. ^ No further 

 public grants were made and so the story of this canal will be dropped 

 with the mere statement that the entire amount of money sunk 

 in this enterprise until it was finally superseded by the railroad in 

 1848 was one million five hundred thousand dollars.^ 



The first railroad corporations chartered in Connecticut were 

 the Boston, Norwich and New London Railroad Company and the 

 -D iij-oad '^^^ York and Stonington Railroad Company. These 

 companies were incorporated in 1832. The legislature 

 provided that the capital stock of these railroad companies should 

 be exempted from taxation until the tolls were sufficient to yield 

 a six per cent dividend on the capital stock. * In the same yeds a 

 charter was granted to the Quinebaug Bank in Norwich. Its charter 

 required the bank to subscribe at least one hundred thousand dollars 

 (and another hundred thousand, if demanded) to the stock of the 

 first named railroad company. The capital stock of the bank was 

 exempted from taxation until the bank and the railroad company 

 should be able to make dividends, which, when taken together, 

 should equal six per cent of their combined capital stock. ^ A year 

 later charters were granted to the Hartford and New Haven Rail- 

 road Company and to the Manchester Railroad Company. By the 

 terms of their charters the capital stock of these companies was 

 exempted from taxation until their profits should be large enough 

 to afford a dividend of five per cent on their capital stock.^ The 

 first train to run in Connecticut was on the Stonington road. This 

 event did not occur until 1839,' and the state received no revenue 

 from the railroads during this period. 



Another form of internal improvement was fostered by the 

 state in 1833. The Merchants' Bank at Norwich was incorpora- 

 Th.e Thames ^^^ *^^ condition that it spend in clearing and 

 Biver deepening the channel of the Thames whatever sum, 



1 Atwater's History City of New Haven, chap. 22, p. 360. 



2 Niles' Register (1840), vol. Iviii, p. 244. 



3 Account of Farmington, Hampshire and Hampden, and New Haven 

 and Northampton Canal Companies, 1850, T. J. Stafford, Printer. 



« Private Laws, 1789—1837, title 33, sec. 17. 



^ PubUc Statute Laws, May 1833, chap. 50, sec. 11. 



^ Private Laws, 1789—1837, title 33, p. 1005, sec. 14 and p. 1019, sec, 18. 



' Second Annual Report of Railroad Commissioners, 1854, p. 4. 



