The Turnpike Road. 125 



hills, there was an endless bridge, over which a heavy train 

 was ever passing, and you heard the distant rumbling 

 sound. 



The stage coach has not been put entirely by ; it comes 

 rattling along drawn by three horses abreast a ponderous 

 vehicle formerly used in the crush and the jam of the city. 

 Now in its old age it is granted a probation, and having 

 proved itself unsmashable, is allowed to spend its declining 

 years on the Turnpike road. Before the time of Governor 

 Tompkins, the highway ran differently than it does to-day ; 

 it passed between the old Ridgway mansion and the Fresh 

 Kill meadows, to the only house beyond. There were but 

 three or four families living on the Neck then, and they 

 enjoyed almost an insular seclusion, like the lone farm 

 house that now stands on " Price's Island," that curious 

 rise in the meadows, near the Fresh Kill. It gathers its 

 chief interest from its peculiar situation. Even the house- 

 hold cat seems wilder there, and runs up an apple tree 

 when you approach, and the poor disabled, ridge-backed 

 horses, stare like creatures of another world, for they are 

 seldom disturbed in their solitary haunts. The salt meadow 

 roundabout has been the occasion of endless bickering and 

 dispute; the unconscious waving grass has caused much 

 unhappiness among the inhabitants. There was once 

 sufficient meadow for all, and the assessors did not consider 

 the entire acreage in their levy. The marsh-wrens and the 

 cackling dabchicks, alone claimed absolute ownership. 

 But with the fences came the unhappy quarrels, and among 

 the inhabitants of a scantily-settled district, disagreements 

 are most distressing. The solitude nurses their woe, it 



