182 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
had been distributed as far as Harrison street, were after- 
ward removed from the avenue. 
Locally the party organization in East Orange in 1896 
was yet so overwhelmingly on the Republican side that 
little doubt as to the authorities again lining up on the 
franchise-granting corporation side was entertained by the 
traction people or their attorney there. And they were 
right. After exhaustive public hearings by the Township 
Committee on November 30, and at three public meetings 
in Commonwealth Hall in December, 1896, when the whole 
situation as to the needed parkways had been fully out- 
lined by many representative citizens, and in a way ex- 
plained by the Park Commission, the new ordinance fran- 
chise for a railroad on Central avenue was passed on first 
reading January 18, 1897. In the meantime, at the meet- 
ing of the previous week, January 11, the request of the 
Park Commission for the transfer of the avenues had been, 
by unanimous vote, declined. This declination was based, 
as was then stated, upon “the reticence of the commis- 
sioners as to what they proposed doing with the avenues 
if they secured them.” Whatever the cause, when the rail- 
road franchise was passed the town woke up. 
The awakening had been accelerated by the methods em- 
ployed by the traction company. The property owners’ 
consents filed with the authorities, were found to be those 
obtained for the Rapid Transit Company several years be- 
fore; and, owing to the favorable sentiment for the park- 
ways, new consents were unobtainable—owners of two- 
thirds of the feet frontage, and of three-fourths of the 
property value on the avenue, having petitioned for the 
parkway. 
The morning after one of the public meetings, Counsel 
J. B. Dill stated that “a resolution would be passed by 
the Park Board granting the trolley people, whom he rep- 
resented, a franchise*for Central avenue, as soon as the 
avenue came in possession of that board.” 
Not long afterward Rev. H. P. Fleming, of St. John’s 
parish, Orange, informed me that a well-known lawyer, 
