1903 private laws – Ch.1 Sec.1

That J. J. Thomas, C. B. Barbee, J. M. Turner, their associates, successors and assigns, are hereby created a body politic and corporate, with perpetual succession, under the name and style of The Raleigh and Eastern North Carolina Railroad Company, and under that name may sue and be sued in any court of the State of North Carolina or elsewhere; may have and use a common seal; may acquire by purchase, gift, devise, lease or otherwise any real, personal or mixed estate and lease or sell the same as the interest of the company may require; may acquire, own, operate or lease any quarries, mines, forests, lumber yards or furnaces, also steam-ships, docks, wharves, lighters, barges, tugs, steam-boats and vessels; may lease, buy or construct telegraph and telephone lines along or near its right of way and charge tolls under such rules and regulations as are prescribed by the laws of this State, or at the option of its board of directors; may lease or rent these privileges to other corporate bodies or persons; may build branch roads not extending more than fifty miles each from any point on its main line; may change the name of said company by a vote of a majority of its stockholders at a regular or special meeting, and may make all such by-laws for the government of said company as may be deemed proper and are not inconsistent with law.