Jersey Street and Jersey Lane: Urban and Suburban SketchesBunner, H. C. (Henry Cuyler)
General
Jersey Street and Jersey Lane: Urban and Suburban Sketches
Bunner, H. C. (Henry Cuyler)
United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
There was a time when it looked as though the path might really develop
into a road. That was the time when the township, having outgrown the
county roads, began to build roads for itself. But, curiously enough,
two subjects of Great Britain settled the fate of that New Jersey path.
The controversy between Telford and Macadam was settled so long ago in
Macadam's favor, that few remember the point of difference between those
two noted engineers. Briefly stated, it was this: Mr. Telford said it
_was_, and Mr. Macadam said it was _not_, necessary to put a foundation
of large flat stones, set on end, under a broken-stone road. Reuben
Levi's township, like many other New Jersey townships, sided with Mr.
Telford, and made a mistake that cost thousands of dollars directly, and
millions indirectly. To-day New Jersey can show the way to all her
sister States in road-building and road-keeping. But the money she
wasted on costly Telford pavements is only just beginning to come back
to her, as she spreads out mile after mile of the economical Macadam.
Reuben Levi's township squandered money on a few miles of Telford,
raised the tax-rate higher than it had ever been before, and opened not
one inch of new road for fifteen years thereafter. And within that
fifteen years the canal came up on one side, opening a way to the great
manufacturing town, ten miles down the river; and then the town at the
end of the path was no longer the sole base of supplies. Then the
railroad came around on the other side of the hill, and put a
flag-station just at the bottom of what had come to be known as Dodd's
Lane. And thus by the magic of nineteenth-century science New York and
Newark were brought nearer to the hillside farm than the town three
miles away.
But year by year new feet trod the path. The laborers who cut the canal
found it and took it when they left their shanty camp to go to town for
Saturday-night frolics. Then William Turnbull, who had enlarged his own
farm as far as he found it paid, took to buying land and building houses
in the valley beyond. Reub Levi laughed at him, but he prospered after a
way he had, and built up a thriving little settlement just over the
canal. The people of this little settlement soon made a path that
connected with Reuben Levi's, by way of William Turnbull's, and whenever
business or old association took them to town they helped to make the
path longer and broader.
[Illustration: "THE LABORERS ... FOUND IT AND TOOK IT"]
By and by the regular wayfarers found it out--the peddlers, the
colporteurs, the wandering portrait-painters, the tinkers and
clock-menders, the runaway apprentices, and all the rest of the old-time
gentry of the road. And they carried the path on still farther--down the
river to Newark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account