Fifth Avenue (New York, N.Y.); Streets -- New York (State) -- New York
The Post Road to Boston of those days differed much from the Boston Post
Road of the present; especially in its first stages going northward from
New York. There was no spacious Pelham Parkway skirting the waters of
the Long Island Sound. Before crossing the Harlem the road followed in a
general way the Broadway trail. Beyond the river it zigzagged in a
northeasterly direction through Eastchester. Not until the crossing of
the Byram River transferred the road from New York to New England did it
take on any resemblance to the trail of today, and even beyond, the town
of Greenwich seems to have been neglected entirely.
Yet, in comparison, the East was developed. It was the bold Sinbad
turning his face resolutely and courageously towards the setting sun who
experienced the real inconveniences and perils. Nor, at first, did that
mean the adventurous journey into the lands that were beyond the great
Appalachian range. The shining countenance of the unknown was nearer at
hand. It is just a matter of turning the clock back a hundred years.
From the windows of the apartment houses looking down on the Riverside
Drive the Delaware River is just beyond the Jersey hills. To journey
there today does not even call for the study of time-tables. Mr.
Manhattan rises at the usual hour and eats his usual leisurely
breakfast. At, say, nine o'clock, he settles back behind the
steering-wheel of his motor-car. Crossing the Hudson by the Forty-second
Street Ferry, he climbs the Weehawken slope, and swings westward over
one of the uninviting turnpikes that disfigure the marshy land between
the Passaic and the Hackensack. Then he finds the real Jersey, the
Jerseyman's Jersey, of rolling hills, and historic memories of
Washington's Continental troops in ragged blue and buff.--Morristown,
with its superb estates, the stiff climb of Schooley's Mountain, the
descent along the wooded ravine, the road following the winding
Musconetcong River through Washington, the clustered buildings of
Lafayette College crowning the Pennsylvania shore, and in good time for
luncheon Mr. Manhattan is over the bridge connecting Easton and
Phillipsburg.
A few years ago there appeared a little book telling of the experiences
of a family migrating from Connecticut to Ohio in 1811. In interesting
contrast to the morning dash just outlined is the story of that journey
of a little more than one hundred years ago. Before crossing the North
River the voyagers solemnly discussed the perilous waters that
confronted them. "Tomorrow we embark for the opposite shore: may Heaven
preserve us from the raging, angry waves!" The first night's stop was at
Springfield, where, within the living memory of the older members of the
party, a skirmish between the American troops and the soldiers of King
George had taken place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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