ould not feel any assurance
that they or their friends would have any voice in the management of
affairs or control of the Company. The capital of the Company was
fixed by the supplementary act at one hundred million dollars, (one
million shares at one hundred dollars each), consequently any interest
holding over fifty millions of the stock would be paramount and vice
versa. Until it was determined who would be in control, investors
fought shy. Under the Charter the subscription books must remain open
until the completion of the road, making it possible for outsiders to
wait until the road was near completion and then step in and by large
subscriptions acquire control.

As there were some funds available, a contract was entered into in
May, 1864, with H. M. Hoxie, to build the first hundred miles. This
contract was extended to cover from Omaha to the hundredth Meridian,
two hundred and forty-seven miles, on October 3rd, 1864, and on the
7th of the same month assigned to a company (simple partnership)
composed of Vice-President Durant and six others, all stockholders of
the Railroad Company. The capital of this partnership consisted of
four hundred thousand dollars (but a small percentage of the amount
necessary to carry out the Hoxie contract). The members of the firm
were unable or else unwilling, owing to the immense personal liability
involved, to put up further funds and some other action was necessary.

Durant and his friends accordingly purchased the Charter of a
Pennsylvania Corporation of limited liability and elastic powers,
known as the "Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency" changed its name by
legislative enactment to the Credit Mobilier of America. Subscribers
of the two million one hundred and eighty thousand dollars of Union
Pacific Stock were given the option of either exchanging Union Pacific
stock for that of the Credit Mobilier, sell their Union Pacific stock
to the Credit Mobilier, or turn it back to the Union Pacific Railroad
Company and have it redeemed. By this the stockholders of the Credit
Mobilier became the sole holders of the Union Pacific stock.

The Hoxie contract was reassigned to the Credit Mobilier who duly
completed the work, finishing the line to the point specified October
5th, 1866. Owing to their inability to raise funds, it seemed as
though the two companies, Union Pacific and Credit Mobilier, would
fall down. There was no sale for the First Mortgage bonds of the
railroad, the Government b