CHAPTER IX 



BUILDING THE COLONY 



' I V HE spring of 1892 rises vividly in memory. The 

 sixty farmers are cutting off the woods, clearing 

 the land of stumps, and assisting carpenters, brick- 

 layers and mechanics hired in New York or Philadel- 

 phia to build their houses. Barns and other out- 

 buildings are springing up. In a short time this waste 

 land, stretching for miles, has been transformed as 

 though a magic wand had been waved over it. The 

 people on the trains passing to the watering-places and 

 resorts Cape May and Ocean City during the sum- 

 mer months of this year could hardly believe the testi- 

 mony of their eyes. What had been, a short time 

 before, a stretch of barren, desolate pines, was changed 

 and enlivened so that they did not recognize it. For, 

 when they reached Woodbine, the monotonous scene 

 blossomed into new houses, brightly-painted outbuild- 

 ings, surrounded, where the pines had been cut away, 

 with crops and young orchards. Inquiring, they would 

 be informed that the wealth of the philanthropist, 

 Baron de Hirsch, had made all this possible. 



The Committee in charge of the Fund realized from 

 the very start that it would take several years before 



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