House and Garden 
BRANCH BROOK PARK 
obtain, if possible,Trom the Board of Chosen Free¬ 
holders of the county of Essex a transfer of the 
care, custody and control of the avenues as here¬ 
inafter designated, to the Essex County Park Com¬ 
mission; as also from the other municipal corpora¬ 
tions in the county a transfer of the same, so far 
as may be necessary, under the statute. 
Corporation Control. At this time the parkway 
question, as applied to Park and Central Avenues, 
had been well considered. The necessity of using 
both avenues for parkways, if any creditable park 
system should be established, was recognized and 
so stated by each of the commissioners. The ac¬ 
tion was taken after mature deliberation; and, 
as already indicated, was in entire accord with the 
recommendations of all the park experts and the 
recorded action of the first commission on that 
subject. Nor was there any reason to then doubt 
what the attitude of the traction company’s man¬ 
agers would be. The matter had been under 
public discussion for some time. Petitions from 
Orange and East Orange to the Park Board, as 
already quoted, had favored early action to secure 
these parkways. 
The trolley management had laid lines to coun¬ 
teract any such result. James B. Dill had been 
employed. The influences were actively at work. 
Within thirty days after the introduction in the 
Park Board of the parkway resolution as above, 
viz., November 9, 1896, application was made to 
the East Orange Township Committee by the 
Consolidated Traction Company for a railway 
franchise on Central Avenue. This was the picket 
gun of a battle that was raged with unceasing 
vigor and aggressiveness for eight years. The 
firing became general and 
soon extended all along the 
line. Both sides were in a 
measure prepared. The Park 
Commission had the law and 
public opinion in its favor. 
The traction company, 
grown greedy and arrogant 
from former franchise spoil, 
had the power of concen¬ 
trated wealth, and the party 
machine, with the resource 
and influence of a domineer¬ 
ing party boss to do its 
bidding. Eor years the cor¬ 
porate interest, then de¬ 
manding the sacrifice of the 
parkway for the coveted 
franchise, had had full 
sway. The old Essex County 
Road Board, before it was abolished years previous 
by a reform Republican Legislature, was their willing 
tool. The succeeding Board of Ereeholders, in 
control of the county roads, although riding into 
power on the popular wave which in 1893 ^^94 
engulfed the race-track, coal-combine, corporation- 
ridden State-and-County-Democracy was equally 
subservient. From those unsavory legislative days 
of 1890, ’92, ’93, the street railway companies had 
readily passed their own bills, both at Trenton 
and in Essex County, as they desired, and in their 
own way. The law permitting a traction company 
to practically pre-empt a street or avenue by merely 
filing a map and certificate of intention with the 
Secretary of State, and the payment of a small 
fee, had, prior to 1896, been availed of, and both 
Park and Central Avenues were “on the map” 
of the traction company’s routes as prescribed, 
■The Storrs bill of 1894 was intended to curb this 
hydra-headed giant of financial and political power 
by requiring the filing of consents of the owners 
of a majority of the street frontage before any 
road could be constructed under this “pre-emption 
law. ” 
As introduced, the bill exempted all non-taxable 
property from consideration in the matter of these 
consents. But, under this clause, the Cemetery 
of the Holy Sepulchre property, with its 966 feet 
of frontage in East Orange, would have prevented 
the company from procuring the necessary “con¬ 
sents” for appropriating Central Avenue there, 
so the “reform” Legislature followed the example 
of its predecessors by amending the bill and strik¬ 
ing out the objectionable clause as the corporations 
desired; 
242 
