John L Roper Lumber Company specimen $1000 bond 1906 (Virginia)

NC and VA timber. Perfect vignette of timber harvesting with men chopping trees with axes. vignette of a period steam train pulling freight cars. Horizontal specimen (printer sample) bond. Unissued and not cancelled. Dated 1906 in the text. Vertical fold from storage. Measuring approximately 12.5 x 9.5 inches. 

When the lumber company was incorporated as the John L. Roper Lumber Company in 1884, its operations had grown to be the biggest throughout the Tidewater regions of Virginia and North Carolina.

In 1868, Roper purchased and rebuilt an old mill in Virginia on the edge of Gilmerton on the Elizabeth River, concluding it was an ideal place to enter the shingle business. Logs from the Dismal Swamp were transported a short distance to the mill on its border.

John L. Roper Lumber Co. first leased 140, 000 acres of the East Dismal Swamp and later acquired from the Albemarle Swamp Land Company circa 1880. Once in possession of the land, the Roper Lumber Co. built the Albemarle & Pantego Railroad to serve as the backbone for its logging operations on that part of the N.C. coast. The Norfolk & Southern Railroad, for which John L. Roper was a principal investor and officer, purchased the railroad and expanded the line from Mackey’s Ferry to Belhaven 1891.

In 1887, a new industry came to Washington County, North Carolina under the name of John L. Roper Land and Lumber Company. John L. Roper, who was originally from Pennsylvania, first became familiar with the town when he was a union soldier stationed in Virginia. In tribute to the new industry, the name of the town of Lees Mills was changed to Roper, on August 14, 1889. The town of Roper was chartered in 1906, and it quickly became a boomtown. During its peak, the Roper Lumber Company was the biggest supplier of cedar shingles in the United States.

The John L. Roper Lumber Company was one of the largest lumber companies in the United States. Mr. Roper had lumber mills throughout North Carolina and Virginia. The mill closest to Roper was in Belhaven. Logs were brought to and from Virginia and North Carolina on Mr. Roper’s railroad, The Albemarle & Pantego Railroad. They crossed the Albemarle Sound and entered Mackey’s Ferry and made their way to Roper. The railroad eventually ran south, straight through the middle of Roper on its way to Belhaven. The railroad ran along what is now Railroad Street.

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