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Page 7

History of  the LIRR Part 1 continued

     Dr. Peck sold his holdings, and the settlement fell into the hands of dishonest men. They caused a confusion of titles, many of the settlers were dispossessed, and the progress of Lakeland was checked. It became known as Ronkonkoma Station.
     The next stop was at Medford, then at a slightly later date at Millville, soon to become known as Yaphank. The next stop was at St. George's Manor, now known as Manorville, but previously shortened to Manor, where fuel and water were replenished. This was a very small place in the midst of a wilderness of forest. A stage line ran north from here to Wading River. Stops were then made at Riverhead, Mattituck, the old and prosperous village of Southold, and then the terminus at Greenport.
     By 1850 the line, which competent engineers had said could never be built was actually completed along the shore line of Connecticut. This opened a true all rail route to Boston. At the same instant the Long Island Railroad lost all its Boston business. From one of the busiest and best paying roads in the country, it fell at once to a position of comparative insignificance, with very little traffic. All the traffic that it did have was between the small towns on the Island, Of course, the railroad went into the hands of receivers. The management from henceforth had but one object in view namely, to build up the traffic on the Island by building up the towns. In Brooklyn the traffic was encouraging, but elsewhere it was scarcely enough to keep the road alive. The Long Island's brief career as a trunk line was over.
     The express trains carrying the Boston traffic stopped only at the regular stations. But the local traffic along Atlantic Avenue was still handled by small locomotives, not capable of making over twelve miles an hour. In fact, it was said that an active man or boy could kept abreast of the trains for several miles. After the trains left Flatbush Depot they would stop at almost every intersecting highway, but the high platforms of the cars made entrance and exit difficult, which prevented the road from being of much use. And the Long Island Railroad, with no competition to fear, did not possess the best of equipment. This condition of affairs existed until the abolishment of the steam service on Atlantic Avenue, in 1860.

     After one passed East New York the train went along the plains until it reached Union Course. Here was located the famous race course. Farms lined the road on either side to Jamaica. The next stop after Jamaica was the little hamlet of Brushville, the present Village of Queens. The train then passed through the midst of Hempstead plains, where could be seen numerous sheep and cattle grazing as far as the eye could reach, with the hills on the north shore looming up in the distance. A stop was made at Hempstead Branch, the present site of Mineola, where passengers for Hempstead boarded the train that took them to that important village. Carl Place was the next stop. It is the present site of Mineola Park, though the station there, once abandoned, was restored in 1922.
     The train then proceeded to Hicksville, for several years the eastern terminus of the line. The line then went southeastward to avoid the hills, stopping at Farmingdale. The line was then laid out, almost as straight as the crow flies, through Hard Scrabble or the Bushy Plains. The line soon entered the woods which, however, had been burnt over many times before the railroad had been there very long. A stop was made at Deer Park, mainly for the convenience of travellers desiring to reach Babylon, a few miles south. The next stop was at Suffolk Station, one and a half miles east of the present Brentwood.
     Dr. Peck of Brooklyn was a man who believed implicitly in the great fertility of the so called "barren plains" of Long Island. He bought much of the land along the railroad from Suffolk Station out as far as Medford. In 1848 49 he started a settlement which he called Lakeland. An agreement with the Long Island Railroad, through its President, George Fisk, who approved of Peck's enterprise and aided him in all possible ways, was made, whereby a cut rate was allowed the settlers. But after the death of President Fisk and the failure of the road, the receivers refused to live up to the agreement.

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Updated Thursday, March 22, 2001

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