Port Jervis, New York

“ A woman with six little children has no business getting into New York City at 3 or 4 p.m.—then across town and the ferry to Jersey City, then by Erie to Port Jervis, N.Y., and then by auto into the mountains. Give me those passes. I'll make them good on No. 12. I'll make your reservations, and I'll have No. 12 stop at Greencastle and pick them up. ”

“ With the exception of Port Jervis the centers of population in the town are small and unimportant. Among them may be mentioned Westbrookville on the line of the old canal, northeast of Cuddebackville; Port Orange, a short distance south on the canal line; Cuddebackville, in the northeastern part of the town, named in honor of the pioneer settler, Jacob Cuddeback; Rose Point, a station on the Monticello Railway; Port Clinton, still further down the valley; Gumaers, also on the old canal line, and Huguenot, between this and Port Jervis. ”

“ Supervisors from the four wards were elected as follows: First Ward, S. S. Garriss, dem.; Second Ward, Henry Farnum, rep.; Third Ward, J. J. Toth, rep.; Fourth Ward, J. P. Gillen, dem.
The population of Port Jervis in 1907, according to the census of the State excise department, taken in that year for the purpose of furnishing a basis upon which to adjust license rates, was 10,035. ”

“ Carpenter's Point is a very old locality, named for an early settler, who established a ferry across the Delaware River there at a very early period. It is near Port Jervis on the south and the famous "Tri-States rock" is located here at the extreme point. This rock marks the junction of the States of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There are several stores, an old grist mill, and many dwellings. A bridge here spans the Neversink River which was built in 1868. ”

“ CHARAC J. VAN INWEGAN was born April 14, 1851, in the town of Deer Park. He has always followed merchandising, succeeding to the business which his father established in Huguenot, which he still carries on. In 1880 he opened a store in Port Jervis in connection with his brother, John C., who took charge of the latter establishment. Charac J. has dealt extensively in wood and each season has shipped thousands of cords to New York. For a time he owned the Huguenot Springs Hotel, and he owns two store buildings in Port Jervis, N. Y. He has been twice married. ”

“ This tract was afterward sold to John Decker, and the location is thought to have been near Port Jervis. Thus the honor of being the first settler seems to belong to this William Tietsort.
Other pioneer settlers came into the Peenpack valley and also in Mamakating Hollow. Most of these old pioneers seem to have taken such lands as suited their fancy with very little regard to who the owner might be. ”

“ The general surface of the town is a mountainous upland broken by many small streams which often flow through rocky ravines. There are steep declivities along the Delaware, Mount William and Point Peter being the most attractive features near Port Jervis. Along Basha's Kill the bottoms are known as the Mamakating valley. Those along the Neversink constitute the Suckapack valley, until the junction with Basha's Kill is reached, when it is called the Neversink valley proper, although also known as the Peenpack. This valley extends to the mouth of the Neversink at Carpenter's Point. ”

“ He entered Hamilton College and graduated in 1901. In November, 1902, he entered the Argus office and succeeded George H. Thompson as editor at his death in May, 1904. He was active in the formation of the Argus and Mercury Company in March, 1906. Mr. Macardell is an easy, graceful writer, and, while "young in the harness," is doing good editorial work.
STAGE, ALBERT L.—The present city editor of the Port Jervis Daily Union is Albert Louis Stage. He was born in the town of Lumberland, Sullivan County, N. Y., June 8, 1876. His parents were Albert and Caroline Cowen Stage. ”

“ The beauty of the scenery in its vicinity has made the city a summer resort. At Port Jervis are situated the extensive shops of the Erie railway. Among the manufactures are wearing apparel, silk, glass, and silver ware. The value of the factory products increased from $1,009,081 in 1900 to $1,635,215 in 1905, or 62%. Port Jervis was laid out in 1826, soon after work began on the Delaware & Hudson Canal ”

“ The Croton work was a triumph of a city of 280,000 inhabitants, who wrought a task, said Jervis, “on a scale greatly beyond their actual or any near future wants, but which, designed to endure for ages, would bear record to those ages, however distant, of a race of men who were content to incur present burdens for the benefit of a posterity they could not know. Magnificent as may be the works of conquerors and kings, they have not equaled in forecast of design, and beneficence of result, the noble aqueduct, constructed at their own cost, by the freemen of the single city of New York.” ”

“ A man may win a purely local reputation, if only for eccentricity, by such means. But Mr. Jarvis's reputation was far from being purely local. Broadway knew him, and the Tenderloin. Tammany Hall knew him. Long Island City knew him. In the underworld of New York his name was a by-word. For Bat Jarvis was the leader of the famous Groome Street Gang, the most noted of all New York's collections of Apaches. ”

“ The Delaware and Hudson Canal, constructed in 1828, and coming over from Rondout Creek through the Neversink Valley, made Port Jervis, which was named after one of its engineers. The canal goes up the Delaware to the Lackawaxen, and then follows that stream to Honesdale. The Erie Railway also comes through a gap in the Kittatinny (here called the Shawangunk Mountain, meaning the "white rocks") , descends to Port Jervis, and then follows up the Delaware. These two great public works have made the prosperity of the town, which has a population of over ten thousand. ”

“ The average cost of education per pupil has been found to be about $22 annually. There are several convents and a full equipment of asylums, homes, and other charitable institutions.
Jersey City is almost inclosed by water, thus affording excellent docking facilities, which, with its railroad connections, have aided its development as a shipping and receiving point, though officially it has no identity as a separate port, since its returns are included in those of the customs district of New York. It has also large slaughtering and meat-packing interests and extensive manufactures. ”

“ Mark Jervis had been agreeably surprised by his aunt’s enthusiastic co-operation; thanks to her powerful alliance, he had carried his point, and was to spend twelve months travelling in India, accompanied by Mrs. Pollitt’s brother, Captain Clarence Waring. The latter was about to revisit his former haunts in an entirely new character—that of mentor and companion to a young man—and, moreover, a wealthy young man. All the world has heard of “Pollitt’s Pearl Barley,” and “Pollitt’s Patent Fowls’ Food.” ”

“ Running through Jericho is the main-traveled road from the eastern part of Long Island to New York, called Jericho Pike. In our time it is a famous thoroughfare for automobiles, is thoroughly modern, and as smooth and hard as a barn floor. In former days it was a toll-road, and over it Elias Hicks often traveled. A cross-country road runs through Jericho nearly north and south, leading to Oyster Bay. ”

“ Jarvis, the sister of his erstwhile flame, Miss Jannette Hart, informs him of the marriage of another sister to Captain Hull of the navy, commander of the Constitution. In this letter, written on March 4, 1813, at Bloomingdale, New York City, Mrs. Jarvis says:—
"I am in general proud of the spirit of my countrymen, but there is too little attention paid to the fine arts, to men of taste and science. Man here is weighed by his purse, not by his mind, and, according to the preponderance of that, he rises or sinks in the scale of individual opinion. ”

“ Honor was becoming familiarized with her new surroundings, had picked up some useful Hindustani words, made a round of calls, and shown that she had no mean skill at tennis. And Mrs. Brande had demonstrated that she was not a woman of words only. She had given young Jervis a general and urgent invitation to her house—moreover, he found favour in her husband’s eyes. He was a fine, well-set-up, gentlemanly young fellow, a keen tennis player, with no haw-haw humbug about him, therefore the Honourable Pelham heartily endorsed his wife’s hospitality. ”

“ At Jersey City there come out to the Hudson River all the great Trunk Line railways from the West, with the single exception of the New York Central Railroad. In the Revolution, the site of the present Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal Station was a British fortification, which was partly stormed and captured, with a number of prisoners, in 1779, by Major Henry Lee. Jersey City is entirely a growth of the nineteenth century, at the beginning of which it had a population of only thirteen persons, living in a single house. ”

“ The 'Atlantic', under the direction of Lieutenant Bowen, a naval agent, ran into a harbour between Van Diemen's land, and Port Jackson, in latitude 35 degrees 12 minutes south, longitude 151 degrees east, to which, in honour of Sir John Jervis, Knight of the Bath, Mr. Bowen gave the name of Port Jervis. Here was found good anchoring ground with a fine depth of water, within a harbour about a mile and a quarter broad at its entrance, which afterwards opens into a basin five miles wide and of considerable length. ”

“ Where Vesey and Greenwich Streets and West Broadway come together is a low, rough-hewn rock house. It has been used as a shoe store since the early part of the century. On its roof is a monster boot bearing the [Pg 80] date of 1832, which took part in the Croton water parade and a dozen other celebrations. In pre-revolutionary days, when the ground where the building stands was all Hudson River, and the water extended as far as the present Greenwich Street, according to tradition, this was a lighthouse. ”

“ Upon the west side, the principal streets running to the North River—Chambers, Warren, Murray, Barclay, Vesey, Dey, and Cortlandt—retain their names and location; but the water-line was then marked by Greenwich street. The present crowded section [Pg 37] to the west of it, including Washington and West streets and the docks, is built on new ground, made within the century. Behind Trinity Church, and as far down as the Battery, the shore rose to a very considerable bluff. Necessarily, much the greater part of the city then lay east of Broadway. ”

“ Now here’s old Rocky on exactly the same subject:
“DEAREST AUNT ISABEL,—How can I ever thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to live in this astounding city! New York seems more wonderful every day.
“Fifth Avenue is at its best, of course, just now. The dresses are magnificent!”
Wads of stuff about the dresses. I didn’t know Jeeves was such an authority.
“I was out with some of the crowd at the Midnight Revels the other night. We took in a show first, after a little dinner at a new place on Forty-third Street. We were quite a gay party. ”

“ The condemned cantonment had an extraordinary fascination for Mark Jervis, and he frequently made a considerable detour, in order to return home by the path that led through this beautiful but melancholy spot. The world had abandoned it for a good reason—he had abandoned the world for a good reason, they had something in common in their isolation. He was familiar with the barracks, the mess-house, the ruinous bungalows, their wild tangled gardens, where flower and tree fought desperately against extinction by savage cousins and distant wild relations. ”

“ The house tenanted by the Jelliffes belongs to a man who is off to the Labrador, trapping cod with a crew of sons and neighbors. His wife has been only too glad to rent it to these very grand people from that amazing yacht, who have come all the way from New York, to the wonderment of the whole population, for the mere purpose of catching salmon. Her eldest daughter has been engaged as maid of all work by the tenants, and will doubtless compensate, in cheerful willingness, for her utterly primitive idea of the duties incumbent upon her.
Miss Jelliffe was sitting upon the porch. ”

“ William Travers Jerome, who, by reason of being the district attorney of the metropolis, his power of pungent political oratory and his strenuous work as a municipal reformer, is one of the best known and decidedly one of the most interesting figures in the current history of New York, is still a young man. He was born April 18, 1859, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, receiving his initial education at the local public school and from private tutors; he took a classical course at Amherst college, and next was a student at the Columbia university law school of New York city. ”

“ These people are excessively poor, and have such a hard struggle for life as to have no desire to regard the laws of the Health Board. Constant complaints are made that the houses are hovels and the alley a breeding-place for disease.
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village sprang from the oldest known settlement on the Island of Manhattan. It was an Indian village, clustering about the site of the present West Washington Market, at the foot of Gansevoort Street, when Hendrick Hudson reached the island, in 1609. ”

“ The water used by the city is of excellent quality and is brought from the basin of the Rockaway River in the northern part of the state. The city has eight municipal parks and one county park, containing nearly two hundred fifty acres. The city maintains a normal school for the training of its teachers and has an excellent public library.
Besides being an active industrial center it is a residential city. Many thousands whose occupations are in the city of New York live in Jersey City. ”