170 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
course as commissioner were gratifying. Ia The Daily 
Advertiser, the same day of Mr. Bramhall’s appointment, 
the following statements appeared in an interview with 
Commissioners Shepard and Peck at the Park Board rooms 
that afternoon of April 21: “Mr. Shepard said that Mr. 
Kelsey had been a faithful member of the commission ; that 
he had attended almost every meeting, and that he was an 
enthusiastic worker.” 
“Mr. Peck here added a few words in praise of Mr. Kel- 
sey, saying that the retiring member had been keenly alive 
to his duties.” 
My non-appointment was, however, to myself a great 
relief. For nearly three years I had given a large 
part of my time and interest to the inception and for- 
mulative plans of the enterprise. The first year with the 
preliminary or original Park Commission, as may be in- 
ferred from the first three chapters of this volume, the work, 
though arduous, and at times confining, was treated as re- 
creation, and was for the most part a pleasure. The two 
years’ service in the second commission were indeed stren- 
uous years, filled with forebodings, doubts and uncertain- 
ties, and, as one who reads these records of the events as 
they occurred at the time, can readily appreciate, were years 
of conflict in my earnest endeavor to hold on the lines of its 
original conception, to the best of my ability, this great 
enterprise, founded as it was upon an ideal of what a park 
enterprise should be, and for which I was willing to devote 
every effort and time to have carried out to the best practi- 
cal result. If this were possible, I believed that the de- 
velopment of this ideal would be a constant pleasure, benefit 
and growing delight to the people of Essex County; and to 
myself an unfailing source of satisfaction in the results ob- 
tained. It was only after my retirement from the active 
work of the commission in 1897 that I better appreciated 
these conditions and what the effort had been. 
But almost immediately, and continuing as it were from 
the very day of the expiration of my term of office, and 
growing out of the conditions then existing, arose another 
