Need help with drayage token

[gary s fl]

Dug this token last week on the edge of a saltwater beach. Had never heard the term drayage previously but learned some info while researching it. Unable to find any info about the company. Diameter is 35mm. Probably made of copper. I'm hoping someone on the forum may have a book with this token in it or know of a good website that may help with obtaining info. Primarily I would like to know the time frame in which the token was used. None of the drayage tokens I've seen online have 'account' on them. Most had a value associated with the token. In this case did the '40' refer to it's value or could the number have been used in lieu of the name of the drayage company that moved the goods? What is it's rarity and worth if any. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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[Mackaydon]

The company was involved in lawsuits in 1895 and again in 1898.
Don....

 

[gary s fl]

Thanks Don. Missed that because I added token in the search. At a minimum it helps with the timeframe.

 

[Red-Coat]

John Craft was born in New Orleans in 1847 and moved to Mobile, Alabama in 1865 after the Civil War to seek his fortune. He joined the Ku Klux Klan and was arrested in the aftermath of the Mobile ‘Kelley Riot’ in 1867. He began his business career as a retail grocer and then later formed the Christian & Craft Company. This was a partnership involved in wholesale and haulage for the timber and lumber industry as well as importing groceries, notably commissioning ships to bring bananas from Central South America. He then gained a seat on the City Council in 1874, initiated the paving of its main street with cypress blocks, led a nine-year campaign to build the city waterworks and install a sewer system, plus numerous other worthwhile causes and ventures through to the early 1930s

His commercial ventures were so successful that he retired from business in 1893 at the age of 46, (although the Christian & Craft company continued under that name for a while thereafter) and devoted the remainder of his life to public service in Mobile specifically and Alabama, generally.

 

[gary s fl]

Wow Redcoat...great info! Curious, how did you find this? I came up empty on Google and duckduckgo.

 

[Red-Coat]

Wow Redcoat...great info! Curious, how did you find this? I came up empty on Google and duckduckgo.

You're welcome. I simply Googled “christian & craft grocery company mobile alabama”. A couple of sources came up as hits, for which the most detailed was in Google Books as “Getting Out of the Mud: The Alabama Good Roads Movement and Highway Administration, 1898-1928”:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id... craft grocery company mobile alabama&f=false

The other led to a recent article in an Alabama newspaper titled "The Craft Highway and its namesake, John Craft"

https://www.clarkecountydemocrat.com/articles/craft-highway-and-its-namesake-john-craft/

 

[gary s fl]

Craft family 1901, Mobile, Al

Still unable to find any info about the company or the token other than the company continued to exist after Craft retired in 1893 (Redcoat's thread).