Reading Company. Office of Secretary-Treasurer.

The Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company was a branch of the Reading railroad system running in a north-south direction between Wilmington, Del., and Reading, Pa. It began life on March 5, 1861, as the Wilmington and Brandywine Railroad Company, under which name it only managed to conduct preliminary surveys. Its object was to connect the various industrial plants located along Brandywine Creek with other railroads leading to the west and to the anthracite coal regions. The Wilmington and Brandywine was renamed the Delaware and Pennsylvania State Line Railroad Company on February 5, 1865, and merged with the Berks and Chester Railroad Company of Pennsylvania on May 29, 1866, to form the Wilmington and Reading Railroad Company. It completed its line from Wilmington to Birdsboro, Pa., in 1870. The road was controlled by the owners of lineside industries, most notably the du Ponts, and the iron-making families of Huston, Steele, Pennock, and Brooke.

The Wilmington and Reading Railroad Company was not financially successful, and defaulted on its interest payments in 1875. At the same time the company became involved with another group of promoters with a paper charter for the Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York Railroad Company. This company had originally been called the State Line and Juniata Railroad and was authorized to build from the Maryland state line to the Broad Top Coal Field, about 150 miles west of the Wilmington and Reading. However, a charter supplement granted unlimited branching powers within the state of Pennsylvania, and its owners sought to promote it first as a line between the Broad Top Field and New York, and then, by absorbing the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Company of 1872, as a line between Baltimore and New York. By merging with the W & R on June 1, 1875, the BNY & P acquired charter rights in Delaware.

By the end of 1875, the court overseeing the Wilmington and Reading Railroad bankruptcy had placed its property in the hands of separate commissioners, this undoing the merger. The W & R was sold at foreclosure on Dec. 4, 1876, and reorganized as the Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company under the control of its old owners on April 3, 1877. The BP & NY was sold at auction on April 23, 1878, and reorganized as the Maryland and Delaware River Railroad Company. It was dissolved on November 30, 1883, without completing any construction.

On August 10, 1898, Henry A. du Pont sold the controlling interest in the Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company to the Reading Company, and it was leased to the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company and its successors on February 1, 1900.

From the description of Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company's secretary's record papers, 1849-1959. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 164036796