14 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
prietor of The Sunday Call, had been active on lines looking 
toward immediate results. On January 21, 1894, the fol- 
lowing editorial appeared in The Call: 
“The park question has been brought forward again by 
the Orange people, and we hope they will keep at it. The 
County of Essex is made up of cities and towns whose 
people are without opportunity to get near Nature or enjoy 
any open-air recreation, excepting on the public highways, 
or by trespassing upon private property. There is available 
for public park purposes at moderate expense the finest park 
site known near any Eastern city—the slope and crown of 
Orange Mountain. Delay will remove it from possible use 
as a park, for it is being rapidly occupied by residences. 
The appropriation of a suitable tract, at almost any point 
from Maplewood west to near Montclair, is now feasible, 
and it will not be so a dozen years hence.” 
STRONG SUPPORT FOR PROJECT. 
This article indicated that at least one of the leading 
county papers would favor the movement, and with the 
two Board of Trade organizations actively interested in the 
work, there was every encouragment that strength and en- 
larged influences would be rapidly added from all portions 
of the county. This prediction was very soon verified, as 
the sequel of events will show. 
In order to insure interest and co-operation in legislative 
circles, a copy of the resolutions which had been adopted by 
the Orange Board of Trade favoring a park system was 
sent to Senator George W. Ketcham, then the representa- 
tive of Essex County in the State Senate, to which, on 
March 31, 1894, he replied: 
“Your communication of the twenty-fourth instant, en- 
closing resolutions relative to public parks, is duly received. 
“The subject is a most important one, and has my sym- 
pathy. Some weeks since the New England Society sent a 
similar letter, and my suggestion was that Assemblyman 
