“The early settlers found a country beautiful to behold, but with the usual discomforts of a new place. There were no stores, when short of provisions neighbor must forage on neighbor; there were no schools, Sunday or secular; there were no churches, there were no Sunday horse cars—ride to church we could not. There were no sidewalks, but there was a superabundance of mud—walk, therefore, we dared not. Those who were bold enough to do so found mud over shoe and usually arrived at the church door in a state of mind. Mud in Woodside at this time came early in the fall, stayed the winter out and lingered through the spring. Goloshes were at a premium and blacking brushes at a discount. “A Woodsider of the period has been compared to a duck standing on one foot, with the difference that the duck stands thus from instinct, the Woodsider for the reason that he had no spot on which to place his other foot. “During the day the horse-cars ran on twenty and forty-five minutes’ headway and seldom ventured out after dark, owing largely to the peculiar facility with which they ran off the track and the difficulty of setting them in the straight and narrow way again. “Your present get off, cross over and wait for the bob-car arrangement is an improvement on the past, decidedly; as such it may afford you some consolation and hope for the future”. (Mr. Swinnerton thus wrote in 1887 when there was loud and prolonged indignation over the “bobtail” car service furnished Woodside). These with other discomforts made life in Woodside interesting and will serve to show the situation during the first year. We were without the bread of life—often short of the bread that perisheth. As there were no sidewalks the middle of the road was used as a foot path by those too early for the next car. “One day”, writes Mr. Swinnerton, “in the middle of the road, and in the spring of 1867, I met and was introduced to Mr. Hine. After the usual civilities Mr. Hine declared his purpose to start a Sunday school just as soon as he had moved into the settlement. This was good news, but I wondered how the ways and means were to be provided. Many of us had spent our last dollar when moving in, and there was not a spare room in the hamlet large enough to accommodate a Sunday school.” “Several months before this the residents met under an old apple tree before the door of a small carpenter shop (Morrison & Briggs’s) to consider church and other interests, but the carpenter shop had disappeared and the apple tree promised little comfort beyond shade. [Illustration: Home Of Mr. C. C. Hine, 209 Washington Avenue. In this house three churches have been organized, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Dutch Reformed.] “When I ventured to ask ‘where?’ Mr. Hine’s reply ‘In my own house’ afforded me a new experience. The notion of any one inviting the children of a neighborhood to his home for religious instruction was novel.” THE SUNDAY SCHOOL OF JUNE 16, 1867.