last twenty-five years, has covered the whole country with a network of 

 fine roads, amounts to a veritable revolution. The first real improvement 

 of Princeton streets was the macadamizing of part of Nassau Street in 

 1880, and the conservatives were loud in their denunciation of this 

 waste of the taxpayer's money. The sidewalks were of brick or of irreg- 

 ular and rough slabs of local stone. It used to be said that the Princeton 

 ladies acquired from these rough walks a gait like that of high-stepping 

 trotters; but this, I feel sure, was a calumny. 



Street lighting was in a very primitive state; what there was of it 

 came from widely spaced and feeble gas lamps, which functioned only 

 in the dark of the moon. "Corporation moonlight" was a phrase not 

 invented in Princeton, but it was very applicable and often used. Needless 

 to say, some of the darkest nights occurred when the moon was supposed 

 to be shining according to the almanac. As late as 1884, 1 had sometimes 

 to feel my way home by walls and fences on nights so dark that one 

 could not see the trees against the sky overhead. The fire department 

 was, as it still is, a volunteer organization, but far less efficient than 

 today, for the equipment was very archaic, hand-engines and hose-carts, 

 and, of course, there was no alarm system. 



There was no public water supply or sewers, as I have already men- 

 tioned. The terrible epidemic of typhoid fever in 1880 was required to 

 awaken the community to the necessity of pure drinking water. My 

 Grandfather's house, when we first went to it, was entirely without 

 bathrooms, or plumbing of any sort, a deficiency which was not supphed 

 till 1862 or '63, when the addition on the west side of the house was put 

 up. Our system, when plumbing was finally installed, consisted of a 

 rainwater tank above the only bathroom and this tank was kept full, in 

 dry weather, by laborious hand-pumping from a cistern, also of rain- 

 water, mostly from the roof of the Seminary. 



The heating arrangements were equally primitive, but more satisfac- 

 tory in result. There was no furnace, but a large "base-burner" stove 

 stood in the front hall and its pipe led up through the staircase well to 

 the attic, where it entered the chimney, and, in this fashion, warmed the 

 halls and stairs very comfortably. In addition, every occupied room had 

 its open fire, or stove, some of anthracite coal, but mostly of wood. The 

 winter's woodpile was a portentous structure and the woodshed a very 

 important factor in the household economy. The house was comfortably 

 warmed, but at the cost of an immense amount of labour. 



What gave the Princeton of those days its especial character was the 

 number of fine and stately old houses, some of them dating back to 



Cm] 



