Long Branch, New Jersey

“ It has a climate favorable to those who are convalescing from illness or seek to recuperate their health. On this account it is a popular resort during the entire year. It has a superior school system and all the other facilities and institutions which mark the progressive city. Long Branch, farther north, is the oldest resort on the coast. Another resort of many years standing is Cape May City. Other well-known resorts are Ocean City, Point Pleasant, Sea Girt, Manasquan, Spring Lake, Belmar, Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, Sea Bright, and Atlantic Highlands. ”

“ But in duty bound, I am here in pursuit of my great social mission, and can tell you, confidently, that Long Branch is a great watering-place, brim full, and running over with fashion once a year, when the hot sun drives all the upper-crust people out of New York, and everybody that is anybody feels the want of extra washing. ”

“ Patriotic as we are, we still turn to foreign lands for our comparisons.
Long Branch and its adjuncts were planned for New York excursionists who are content with the ocean and the salt air, and do not care much for the picturesque. It can be described in a phrase: a straight line of sandy coast with a high bank, parallel to it a driveway, and an endless row of hotels and cottages. Knowing what the American seaside cottage and hotel are, it is unnecessary to go to Long Branch to have an accurate picture of it in the mind. ”

“ To the west, beyond the Hudson, lies the Jersey shore, covered by Jersey City and Hoboken. To the northeast, over the Harlem, lies the mainland of New York state; and to the southeast is Long Island with Brooklyn. East River, which separates Manhattan from Long Island, is not a river but a strait connecting upper New York Bay with Long Island Sound. It is long and winding, a mile wide at its narrowest point, and contains three large islands — Ward's, Randall's and Blackwell's — that are occupied chiefly by the city's institutions and prisons. ”

“ A large backward area of Kings County and an empty area south of Jamaica were to be developed and opened to commerce and settlement. The Bay Ridge docks were so favorably situated with reference to the Jersey Central and Lackawanna docks that the lion's share of bulk freight would pass over the new road. In March 1873 the directors of the road opened conversations with Oliver Charlick for permission to use the Long Island RR rails between East New York and Dunton, and with President Fox of the South Side for the use of the tracks between Dunton and Valley Stream. ”

“ All the chief New Jersey railroads open avenues to the richest mineral region of the Atlantic States,—to the Far South and the Far West of the country. Two or three may be styled commuters' roads, running chiefly for the accommodation of city business-men with suburban residences. The Long Island Road is a road without important branches; but the majority of all the roads subsidiary to New York are avenues to some broad and typical tract of the interior. ”

“ The Orange Mountains are three parallel ridges of trap rock known as the First and Second Mountains, and Long Hill, separated by narrow valleys, underlaid by sandstone. A ridge of trap extends along the New Jersey shore of the Hudson river, known as the Palisades, and is world renowned for its scenic beauty. The Navesink Highlands, a group of sandy hills S. of Sandy Hook, and other detached hills to the S. W. rise to a height of nearly 400 feet. The entire S. portion of the State is an undulating plain gradually decreasing in altitude toward the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware river. ”

“ It is not too much to suppose that it came over from Long Island and New Jersey, and possibly farther south, as well as from the same region over Westchester County; that its front extends from the Hudson on the west to Buzzard's Bay on the east; that it has moved a hundred miles north and east, and still reaches out its favors to those belated north-men and down-Easters who have hitherto mocked us. ”

“ THE FATE OF SOUTH JERSEY.
The Camden and Atlantic, the Philadelphia and Atlantic City, the New Jersey Southern, and some minor railroads, pass through portions of New Jersey long known as the "Jersey Barrens." They are all new roads, comparatively speaking, but they have wonderfully stimulated the enterprise that has created so many flourishing villages that ten years ago had never been heard of. Vineland, the fairest and most flourishing village in the country, as well as the largest, is only about fifteen years old. Its population is six thousand. ”

“ In 282fact, he was obliged to bridge or ford the principal rivers or streams in Northern New Jersey; thus furnishing the best precedent which the Camden and Amboy Railroad engineers have ever had for carrying people across New Jersey soil and waters in a bad temper. ”

“ The Duke of York, owner of all the land in the New World which had once belonged to Holland, shortly gave part of it to two of his friends, who called their tracts East and West New Jersey. The owner of West New Jersey did not keep his share long, but sold it to some Quakers, who settled near Bur ́ling-ton. East New Jersey was likewise sold to William Penn and others; but both provinces were given up to the crown in 1702. New Jersey—as they were now called—was under the same rule as New York—until 1738, when it became a separate colony. ”

“ The only railway is the Long Island Railroad (owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad) with western termini on Manhattan and in Long Island City and Brooklyn, whence lines meet at Jamaica, and thence three principal lines branch, the north shore to Wading River, the main line to Greenport, and the south side to Montauk.
Long Island is a part of New York State, its western third forming Brooklyn and Queens boroughs of New York City—these boroughs were formed respectively from Kings county and from the w. ”

“ A number of facts indicate that the coast of New Jersey and Long Island is gradually sinking. From the marshes of New Jersey are taken the trunks of trees which could not have grown there except when it was drier ground, and on the shore stumps are seen, now under water, of trees which must have grown on land. So, too, the sea throws up in storms portions of turfy soil, once covered only by the air, and similar soil has been reached below the sea-level in pits dug through drifted sand along its margin. ”

“ Early in June land was bought on Lawrence Street for a right-of-way; negotiations were on foot for the future site of Bridge Street depot on the north side of Northern Boulevard. By mid-June the contractor to build the road had been selected: Gaynor, Lord and Carroll, who built the Morris & Essex R.R. in New Jersey and others. The completion date for construction of the road from Hunter's Point through Woodside to Flushing was set at October 15 and the contractor agreed to a forfeit of $100 a day for failure to meet the agreed-upon date for completion. ”

“ The boundary controversy between New York and New Jersey has produced a long discussion over the successive developments of the historical geography of that part of the middle colonies. An important map on the subject is a long manuscript roll (5 × 2-6/12 feet) , preserved in Harvard College library, which has been photographed by the regents of the University of the State of New York, and entitled A copy of the general map, the most part compiled from actual survey by order of the commissioners appointed to settle the partition line between the provinces of New York and New Jersey. ”

“ New Jersey is a reasonable and hospitable State, and when an ex-king comes to reside within her borders, he will be as well treated, so long as he behaves himself, as if he were a poor immigrant from Europe, coming with his wife and family to clear away the forest, and make himself a home. ”

“ Longwood's in New Jersey, a real picturesque village of a thousand inhabitants. It's a little over an hour from New York by the main line and here and there round it are country places, mostly fine ones owned by rich people. There are some farms too, and along the railway and the turnpike are other villages. My exchange is the central office for a good radius of country, taking in Azalea, twenty-five miles above us on the main line, and running its wires out in a big circle to the scattered houses and the crossroad settlements. ”

“ New Jersey is rich in its facilities for recreation and recuperation. The long sea coast is one long line of attractive summer resorts, which are famous all over the world, while some places are pleasure and health resorts all the year round, and attractions of a different kind are found in abundance among the mountains, woods, lakes, and streams of the northern part of the state. ”

“ Long, George, a distinguished classical scholar, born in Lancashire; became professor of Greek in London University; edited several useful works, among others the “Penny Cyclopædia,” on which he spent 11 years of his life (1800-1870) .
Long Island (774) , a long narrow island, 115 m. long by from 12 to 24 broad, belonging to New York State, off the shores of New York and Connecticut, from which it is separated by the East River and Long Island Sound. It is low, much of it forest and sandy waste land, with great lagoons in the S. The chief industry is market-gardening ”

“ Before the white race came to America, the locality now known as Jersey City, was occupied by a branch of the Minsi division of the Lenni Lenape Nation of the Red Men, and was called Sheyichbi. The whole of the present state of New Jersey belonged to the Lenape, and was occupied by bands bearing different names according to the special features of the locality, but all recognizing their unity as one people. ”

“ In the light of past experience the conjecture that Long would in time have gained the presidency is not one casually to be shrugged aside. Had he ever attained “My First Days in the White House,” subjection of the large cities (not the rural areas) would have been his primary objective. Just as New Orleans was the last foothold of the carpetbaggers in the 1870s, Boston, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, and others might have learned what it is like to live under the rule of force from without. ”

“ The road leads up over a sort of plateau; a wide expanse of country can be viewed in all directions, but there are only more fields to see, more farm-houses and squatty barns, perhaps a village church steeple in the distance, a village that has its oldest inhabitant and a church with a church-yard. Away off to the north, across a gleaming strip of water, which the map shows to be Long Island Sound, lie the blue hills of the Bronx. They, too, are well within Greater New York. So is all that country to the southwest, far beyond the range of the eye, Jamaica, and Jamaica Bay and Coney Island. ”

“ Even the huge advertising sign-boards which usually shout to passers-by along the approaches to cities are rather scarce in this country, for it is about midway between two branches of the only railroad on Long Island, and there is no need for a trolley. There is nothing but country roads, with more or less comfortable farm-houses and large, squatty barns; not only old farm-houses, but what is much more striking, farm-houses that are new. Now, it does seem odd to build a new farm-house in a city.
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The Dreary Edge of Long Island City. ”

“ From the River Mauritius off to beyond the Fresh River stretches a channel that forms an island, forty leagues long, called Long Island, which is the ordinary passage from New England to Virginia, having on both sides many harbors to anchor in, so that people make no difficulty about navigating it in winter. The country is generally covered with trees, except a few valleys and some large flats of seven or eight leagues and less ”

“ On the road again the next morning, over the ferry, into the cars with sliding panels and fixed windows, so that in summer the whole side of the car may be made transparent. New Jersey is, to the apprehension of a traveller, a double-headed suburb rather than a State. Its dull red dust looks like the dried and powdered mud of a battle-field. Peach-trees are common, and champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, drawn by mules, swim by, feeling their way along like blind men led by dogs. ”

“ Long Island was included in the territory assigned to the duke of York in 1663–1664, when the New England towns on the island objected to separation from Connecticut. On the recovery of New York by the Dutch in 1673 the eastern towns refused to submit to the Dutch governor. In 1674 by the treaty of Westminster Long Island became a part of the British colony of New York. The Dutch settlements were more important ethnically than historically; on the west end of the Island the Dutch Reformed Church is still strong and there are many Dutch names ”

“ Not a drop of our blood have you spilled in battle, not an acre of our land have you taken but by our consent. These facts speak for themselves, and need no comment. They place the character of New Jersey in bold relief,—a bright example to those States within whose territorial limits our brethren still remain. Nothing save benisons can fall upon her from the lips of a Lenni-Lenape."
But the love of their old home did not die out entirely in the hearts of all the Edge-Pillock Indians, who emigrated, first to New York, and then to Michigan. ”

“ This property lies about two miles west of Bound Brook, New Jersey, which town is reached by the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Philadelphia & Reading and the Lehigh Valley Railroads, and the Farm is most accessible, as it is on the trolley line which connects Bound Brook and Somerville. ”