SUBURBAN AND MOUNTAIN PARKS IN MASSACHUSETTS
By Edward Kirk Titus

A SCENIC GIFT TO NEW YORK STATE

By Francis W.Halsey

OCEAN BEACH RESERVATIONS FOR NEW YORK CITY
By William H.Allen

NEW YORK'S PROPOSED BRONX-RIVER PARKWAY

Am.Rev.of Revs.
May,1907 —
Vol.35, No.5

as ee he hd

ivisv

4

162 SUBURBAN AND MOUNTAIN PARKS IN

- >

ECHO LAKE, WACHUSETT MOUNTAIN STATE RESERVATION.
be (aoa : (This iake and its shores now belong to the people of Massachusetts forever.)

+ MASSACHUSETTS.

BY EDWARD KIRK

[8 the making of public parks, city
: councils and legislatures have a fatal
gift for not seeing things until after they
happen. The man with a long look into the
future, forecasting the possible ministry of
shore or hill to tired humanity, soon bumps
his head against aldermanic horizons. And
so the public, disorganized and unimagina-
tive, often loses it. birthright to the real-
estate promoter’s keener foresight.

Hence the tawdry metamorphosis of many
a marshy river bank or rocky hill, marked
by nature with flaming maple or frowning
cliff as land that ought to be common to all.
‘Hacked into streets and lots by the real-
estate speculator’s mangling hand, they be-
come Greensward Terrace, or Sky Top Gar-
dens. In return for our heritage we are
graciously invited to a land sale with- free
band concert and balloon ascension, permit-
ted,—plated spoons thrown in,—to buy a
fifty-foot lot for $200. Thus arises the
suburban slum. :

LUIS,

r 4

In Massachusetts there has been a story
with a better ending. It passes by Franklin
Park in Boston and many: another urban
oasis, as not unlike the achievements of New
York or Philadelphia or Chicago. It tells
rather of a rare foresight that has included
in its scope suburban and country life, and
has induced the people in their corporates
capacity to seize for their own many a shore
and wildwood and hill, before the real-estate
speculator realized their value,-thus beating.
him on his own ground and at his own game,
and redeeming these beauty spots from abuses
of private ownership.

Suburban life fifteen years ago, about Bos-
ton, as elsewhere, was crude. A return to
nature,—vine-clad cottages, buttercup-starred
meadows, and all that,—had been expected
from the great migration that followed the -
building of trolleys beyond city limits. But
the cold reality was commonly enough the
exchange of a well-paved street, with sub-
stantial brick houses and a park fifteen min-

BROOKS’ ROAD AND PORTER'S COVE, MIDDLESEX

(One of the attractive spots reclaimed by the State of Massachusetts for the

benefit of the people.)

utes away by street-car, for a jungle of wood-
en dwellings on fifty-foot lots, and no park
within reach. “The Boston suburb of Ever-
ett, typical of many, had in 1893, with 16,-
000 people, not a foot of park land.

By a curious irony, the lovelier the spot
the likelier for an area of ugliness under the
hand of the speculator. Low land along the
Charles, Mystic, and Neponset rivers, whose
juxuriant vegetation e=
vealed nature in most
jocund mood, was pe-
culiarly available for
cheap promotion, be-
cause its unsuitability
for building placed it
on the market at a
small price. Pictur-
esque tracts about the
Blue Hills and Mid-
dlesex Fells, unfit for
street, sewer, and house
construction because of
rocky irregularity, were
for similar reasons go-
ing for low prices that
threatened shabby de-
velopment. Kangaroo
tenements, three stories
in front and four or
five in the rear to fit
the slope, threw ugly
gingerbread balconies

THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

.and_ spider-webs_ o f
clothes line over many
a romantic hill and
dale.

Public indifference
to the need of park
land and to the loss of
beautiful scenery was a
foe worse than the pro-
moter. ‘The early col-
onists reserved much
“common” land, but
it had been largely frit-
tered away. Salisbury,
for instance, had a fine
“training-field.” An
abutter planted a row
of trees in this field.
When his fence fell,
some years later, it
was rebuilt outside the
trees, to which, with
the included land, his
title is now undisputed.

; Yarmouth had a large

common that was granted to certain persons

as long as they should use the land, but with
no intent of giving transferable rights. These
holdings were sold, and the town has never
defended its now dubious title. Such en-
croachments could not ordinarily be called
dishonest since they merely absorbed what no
one valued. In more flagrant cases, men who
swindled towns out of valuable “ common ”

FELLS RESERVATION.

VIEW EAST FROM MATTAPAN BRIDGE,
(Neponset River Reservation.)

“SUBURBAN AND MOUNTAIN PARKS

IN MASSACHUSETTS. 563

NANTASKET BEACH, BOSTON.

(A noble example of a beach owned by the people and managed in their interest.)

rights were regarded with admiration by
their townsmen for their smartness.
Gloucester, population 25,000, had in 1893
no park or common. ‘ Where do they go for
band concerts?” a visitor asked. “* The band
takes the sidewalk and the people the street.”

Abundant rights of public access to the
seashore existed years ago, but in 1893 only
five out. of forty-six Massachusetts shore
towns had any legal beach rights worth men-
tioning. Westport illustrated the general in-
difference. Several people having built
houses within the line of a street running
1000 rods along the water, the town, to
avoid making them move, relocated the. high-
way inside the sand hills, thus ‘spoiling a
magnificent ocean drive. The rapid pur-
chase of the Massachusetts shore front by
people of wealth cut the public off from
haunts enjoyed since time immemorial, and
the rapid erection of gates and barbed wire
was fast making the ocean front into some
one’s back yard.

Even the metropolitan district (within
eleven miles of Boston) enjoyed public rights
to the shore on only a few insignificant tracts.
The harbor islands were unavailable because
mostly used for penal and charitable institu-
tions. Revere, Nantasket, and other resorts
open to the public were so conducted under
private ownership as to attract hosts of peo-
ple of a somewhat disorderly type, so that
these lovely shores were enjoyed by one class
only. :

* Great Head, in Winthrop, perhaps seven-
ty-five feet high, one of Boston harbor’s most
conspicuous landmarks, was bought in 1883

for only about $18,000. The 200 lots into
which it was cut must have netted a large
profit above expenses, as it is estimated that
they sold for $400 each. And now, as seen
from the decks of passing ships, this head,
though a pretty and populous suburb, sug-
gests the older materialism of the public, of
councilmen and legislators, that no one saw
the possibilities of this spot for an unusual
and imaginative park development. How
easy to have made it into a woodland park,
so that one headland of a bleak and treeless
harbor horizon might have emulated the
beautiful Navesink Highlands of New York,
thus offering the ocean traveler a captivating
forecast of American scenic beauty.

WORK OF THE METROPOLITAN COMMISSION.

A movement for the enrichment of subur-
ban and country life through public parks
containing the- best of the natural scenery
had its beginning about 1892. During that
year the Massachusetts Legislature_ created
the Metropolitan Park Commission, which
has now acquired, at the expense of the towns
and cities of the district, 10,053 acres in the
metropolitan district and outside of Boston.
The principal holdings are the Blue Hills
and Middlesex Fells reservations, forty-seven
miles of frontage on the Charles, Mystic,
and Neponset rivers, and five beaches with
ten miles of shore. “The commission has ex-
pended about $12,000,000, and individual
cities and towns in the district about $23,-
000,000 more on their own account.

When the commission took Revere Beach;
the Coney Island of Boston, a railroad ran-

THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

REVERE BEACH, BEFORE THE METROPOLITAN

PARK COMMISSION TOOK IT.

(All the usual cheap and tawdry features developed under private management.)

along the shore, and the sands between the
track and the water were jammed by an ugly
huddle ot dingy and decrepit bath, fish, and
boarding houses. “Their owners, eager -to
utilize every inch of space, had built so far
out that at two-thirds tide the public was
-cut off from the water, and could pass up or
down only by walking upon the railroad
tracks, where trains were running every ten
minutes. Women and children shunned the
rough crowd.

The commission removed the buildings,
i107 in number, from the shore front, re-
quired the railroad to place its tracks at the
rear of the village, and substituted an eighty-
foot macadam highway. It erected and
maintains a bathhouse used by 142,942 per-
sons last year, which has accommodated 7171
in one day. “The beach attendance, stimu-
lated both by good police protection and by
private amusement enterprises, has grown
from 500,000 to 5,000,000 annually. The
pleasures of the shore must be wholesome, as
a two-hundred-thousand-a-day crowd has
frequently required not one arrest. ‘This is
clearly not due to police laxity, as women and
children feel so safe as to constitute half the
attendance. When a shower comes, the police
are less given to scurrying for doorways,
more likely to be found rounding up helpless
broods of children for tired mothers.

You still find at Revere the tawdriness of

all great resorts of its type. “The merry-go-
round man may have his organ, in deference
to some back eddy of Boston culture, play
“ Aida,” or “ Faust,” but he feels that he
must assist the imagination by setting up
manikins of Washington and Roosevelt to
beat the cymbals. ‘The hotel-keeper would
not be satisfied with a piazza railing of sim-
ple straight posts, but must have his rails
belly out into fat ovals to satisfy his love for
the beautiful.

It was with cockney impudence that all
sorts of such excrescences jostled in between
sea and shore at old Revere, thus crowding old
ocean out of sight and hearing, as if their
tinsel were more fascinating than the ro-
mance of rolling surf and sounding sea.
They took their cue from the faces of the
loungers, which at any of our great shore
resorts will turn their eyes from ocean’s eter-
nities to the boardwalk for some common-
place reproduction of Broadway or Wash-
ington street. But now at Revere the State’s
fiat has at least ordered all this tinsel of
man’s device to its place behind the great
shore boulevard, and has restored unbroken
to the eye of him who would see, a match-
less crescent of silver sands and whirling
surf.

The river banks and river life handled by
the Park Commission have also had their
vicissitudes, Fine estates in older days often

SUBURBAN AND MOUNTAIN PARKS IN MASSACHUSETTS.

BOSTON.

REVERE BEACH,
(Contrast this picture with that on the opposite page.)

faced the streams, and terraced their lawns,
planted their gardens, and built their rustic
houses to befit the dignity and beauty of the
river. But manufacturing establishments,
finding the water useful, began to drop their
lines of refuse along the banks and to line the
shores with ugly buildings. Decadent boat
clubs left rotting piles and falling roofs. ‘The
outrages of rough canoeists led to much
stringing of barbed wire, thus driving away
the most domesticated picnicker. “The newer
houses ali turned their backs to the stream.

The Park Commission has now acquired
control of these rivers and of the view from
the water, by taking strips of land 100 feet
to half a mile wide, for a total frontage of
forty-seven miles. Large tracts of woodland
of sixty or more years’ growth were saved as
the choppers were beginning their cruel work.
Barbed wire is now all cleared away, and
the jocund picnicker again thrives. Ugly
buildings are removed, or screened by poplars
or other quick-growing trees. Roughs are
kept-off the water. “The number of canoes
owned along the Charles River for six miles
near the city of Newton has increased from
1500 to 5000 under the new régime, making
this the greatest boating river in the world,
except the Thames.

Stupid forestry along these river banks
under private ownership was corrected none
- too soon. The owners used to burn over
their wood lots every year to get rid of un-

BATHING

565

HOUSES TO THE RIGHT.

derbrush, or to prevent fires that in their
absence might destroy buildings. ‘Thousands
of trees were irreparably damaged, but the
commission saved many by applying coats of
tar to trunks left without any bark to shiver
iva northern climate. Portions of the Mid-
dlesex Fells and Blue Hills reservations had
been burnt over shortly before the State took
them, so that there had sprung up a weedy
growth of monotonous thickets. Under-
brush threatening fire has been removed, un-
promising trees cut out, and individual trees
receive thoughtful and affectionate treatment.
When a branch is taken off, the wound is so
carefully trimmed that the bark can cover
the scar. Pruning is done so promptly that
trees shall not waste vitality on limbs that
must eventually come off.

Roads with lovely vistas, rules against
shooting, removal of causes of fire, and hence
return of long evicted varieties of plants, zinc
labels for trees at rendezvous. for nature
study classes, 3000 skaters at woodland ponds
in a week, 8000 climbers to the big Blue
Hill in a day, planting of pine seedlings,
picturesque flocks of sheep, waterfowl! on the
ponds,—these are a few features of recent
progress.

Landscape effects have had a discriminat-
ing analysis under Olmsted Brothers. If a
bridge was to be considered merely as a por-
tion of a parkway, flat girders or arches, with
all effect concentrated upon the parapet,

566

would be chosen to emphasize the importance
of the roadway. If it was desired that the
bridge emphasize the river, there would be
an elevation of grade and a conspicuous arch.

‘To avoid the stereotyped effect of the great
European forests, where the differences of
human control tend to average themselves in
an uninspiring sameness, the landscape archi-

HEMLOCK GORGE RESERVATION.

(Looking toward pond near Deyil’s Den.)

tects have arranged these reservations in
three distinct forms of woodland. There are
the close woods, in which the leafy canopy is
unbroken ; the open woods, in which the trees
stand so far apart as to develop their lower
branches and leave sunny openings; and open
ground, where the eye, though relieved by
occasional trees, wanders freely through pas-
ture and swamp. ‘The city dweller not mere-
ly finds trees and blue sky, but can range
freely without fearing lest at any moment
he may emerge upon a crowded street.

RURAL SCENIC RESERVATIONS.

The outlying country always feels the
park impulses last. With no particular need
of “breathing spots,” the cross-roads village
realizes with difficulty the wisdom of pre-
serving the finest scenery. But during the
past few years even rural Massachusetts has
caught the enthusiasm of what may be called

the country-park movement, and about all

the larger towns now have sizable parks.
About a dozen beauty spots in the real coun-
try have been given to the people of Massa-
chusetts as a result of the organization of
“trustees of public reservations.” ‘The crea-

THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

tion of this board, which became the model
for the National Trust for Places of His-
toric Interest and Natural Beauty in Eng-
land, encourages such benefactions by assur-
ing possible givers that lands they may offer
the public will be held and administered as
parks forever by a responsible authority.
Among the tracts secured in this way have
been Mount Anne Park, in Gloucester, a
rocky knob looking seaward to Maine; the
Rocky Narrows, a picturesque gorge on the
Charles River, and Monument Mountain,
whose 200 acres of picturesque tree growth
and jagged ledges constitute one of the finest
of the Berkshire hills.

The Province Lands, 4000 acres upon the
tip of Cape Cod, held by the State since co-
lonial times, were until recently neglected.
With cool air, a wide view of shipping, with
memories of the toiling Puritans who here
dried and salted their fish, this tract deserved
a better fate. The State agent conscientious-
ly kept away, to avoid burdening the com-
monwealth with his fee of $3 per day. The
land was once heavily wooded, but the whole-
sale taking of sod and trees let loose a ruin-
ous and remorseless tide of the shifting cape
sands, strangling great tracts of pine and
maple, and choking many a lily pond and
salt creek.

A systematic effort to reclaim this spot of
memories and possibilities has resulted. from
this country-park movement. Experiments
with willows, silver poplars, tamarix, horn-
beam, cockspur thorn, common privet, silver
maple, tree of paradise, white and seaside
pine, proved that these could not flourish
sufficiently to hold down the shifting sands.
But common alder, black locust, and bay
berry are found to thrive here, and native
pitch pine, which grows well either from
seed or transplanting, is most valuable in
binding the sand in place.

The intense localism of the ordinary Amer-
ican community has been a most serious ob-
stacle in all this evolution. ‘The ineffective-
ness of municipalities was suggested at the
time of the threat to remove Norton’s Woods,
a lovely grove in the outskirts of Cambridge,
and the principal pleasure ground for a hum-
ble neighborhood in the adjoining city of
Somerville. Cambridge would not act be-
cause Somerville people would get the prin-
cipal benefit; Somerville could do nothing
because the land was in Cambridge. I was
expressing regret to a Winthrop real-estate
dealer that their Great Head had not been
taken twenty years before for $18,000, when

SUBURBAN AND MOUNTAIN PARKS IN MASSACHUSETTS.

a moderate sum_ for
trees would have made
it Boston’s — loveliest
playground and one of
the most attractive
headlands in the great
Atlantic harbors.

EUW ell isaid. > may:
promoter, “ Winthrop
had but 3000 people
then. How could they
have known that the
- town would be want-
ing a park now? =
This ability to see only
the interest of one’s
own neighborhood, a
back eddy of our local
self-government, will be

encountered in almost
any State that follows
Massachusetts’ exam-

ple in this park move-
ment. It was met there
only through vigorous
action by the common-

wealth, and was a serious obstacle at first. .

The logical outcome of the country-park
movement has been the taking of three great
mountain reservations by the State, 1800
acres on Mount Tom, near Springfield and
Holyoke; 3000 on Wachusett, near Worces-
ter, and 7000 on Greylock, near,, North

2

567

ECHO BRIDGE, HEMLOCK GORGE RESERVATION.

Adams. ‘The assent. by large majorities to
these propositions by the voters of these
counties, who were required to pay mainte-
nance charges, showed that the real country
wanted its parks, too.

Lumber and street-railway interests fought
bitterly the taking of Mount Tom. “ Only

THE CHARLES RIVER RESERVATION AT AUBURNDALE BRIDGE.
(Canoeing is a popular sport on the Charles.)

568 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

WACHUSETT MOUNTAIN STATE RESERVATION.

(One of the recently acquired State holdings.)

a mountain goat could climb it,” was their of these highlands, long deserted in our pro-
contemptuous view. But an aged nature saic days, but loved by the forefathers. He
lover of Northampton knew better the secrets felt that if the colonists built their homes

A SCENE IN WACHUSETT MOUNTAIN STATE RESERVATION,
(Deer are protected in Massachusetts.)

A SCENICTGIEI: LO) NEVA YORK STATE.

upon these crags because they loved the
beauty of the spot, we should be as appre-
clative; it the better view of the movements
of the red man was the motive, we should
venerate the scenes of these vigils, and guard
them against encroachment.

And so Christopher Clarke, nature lover,
drove the State Harbor and Land Commis-
sion and a few crestfallen objectors over
these forgotten old roads in a four-horse

569

wagon, past the old cellar holes, haunted by
the sweetness of surviving lilacs. “The im-
pressions of that day’s -drive won the assent
of this influential board, and by sanction of
the county electorate a glorious mountain,
accessible to 200,000 people, for a 5-cent fare,
accumulating the wild creatures that find
refuge here from the sportsman, safe from
the assaults of the lumberman, became the
possession of Massachusetts forever.

‘A SCENIC GIFT_TO

NEW YORK. STATE.

BY FRANCIS W. HALSEY.

VV HEN Governor Hughes signed the bill

accepting Letchworth Park as the gift
of William Pryor Letchworth to the State of
New York, he described the gift as “an act
of generosity which fitly crowns a life of
conspicuous public usefulness, and entitles the
donor to the lasting regard of his. fellow citi-
zens.” ‘Che circumstances in which Mr.
Letchworth made this gift date, as to their
beginnings, from a period somewhat remote
from the present generation. After he had
become a successful business man in Buffalo,

_he made, in 1859, his first purchase of land

bordering on the great gorge of the Genesee
at Portage. He bought additional tracts
from time to time, until eventually he became
the owner of about 1000 acres, extending on
both sides of the river for a distance of three
miles.

Retiring definitely from business. in 1872,
this estate, to which long before he had given
the name “Glen Iris,” became his perma-
nent home. He had already done much to

improve the grounds, and on the three farms
included in his purchases carried on agricul-

tural industries. Mr. Letchworth’s life
thenceforth was to be largely philanthropic

_and has had its radiating center in this beauti-

ful domain. From the beginning he liked to
have its charms shared by others. He was
always hospitable to visitors, the grounds be-
ing constantly open to such persons as might
wish to enter them. His desire to increase
the usefulness of the property finally assumed
definite form when he founded there an in-
stitution where poor children from cities
might be entertained. “This for many years
continued in active operation through a
board of trustees.
| Meanwhile, Mr. Letchworth was ap-
proaching old age. (His years now number

i]
!
H
|

eighty-three.) Just what he could most ad-
vantageously do with the property in his will,
long remained a problem he could not satis-
factorily solve. “Through an act of the Legis-
lature, a power company acquired, a few years
ago, the right to use the waters of the river.
‘This pointed to the building of a great reser-
voir above the upper falls and the conversion
of the lower gorge into a tail-race, thus de-
priving the three cascades of their supply of
water, all of which meant the virtual de-
struction of the chief beauties of Glen Iris.
Indeed, Mr. Letchworth saw in this enter-
prise the probable defeat of his long cherished

VIEW OF THE RIVER GORGE FROM

MR, LETCHWORTH’S
HOUSE,

570

wishes ‘to preserve the falls in perpetuity and
in their original splendor for the benefit of
the public.

While still in doubé as to what he should
best do, he learned of the work of the Amer-
ican Scenic and Historic Preservation Society
of New York City, in protecting Niagara
Falls and the Palisades, and in the purchase
and improvement, through State funds, of
Stony Point and Watkins Glen, the society
having become the custodian of the two latter
reservations. Entering into communication
with the trustees of the society, of which Dr.
George F. Kunz is president, and Edward
Hagaman Hall the executive secretary, he
held several conferences with a committee
from the board of trustees, the result of
which was his decision to give the property
to the State as a public park, retaining for
himself a life use and tenancy, with the right
to make further improvements at his own
expense, the custody of the property after his
death to pass into the hands of the American
Scenic Society, which should have the full
control and management of it.

Matters had reached this stage just before
the Christmas holidays in 1906. The pro-
posed gift was then made known to Governor
Hughes, who in his message on January 1,
specially recommended that the proper legis-
lation be undertaken at once. A bill pro-
viding for the acceptance of the gift was in-
troduced, but it encountered opposition that
resulted in an amendment eliminating the
American Scenic Society as the eventual cus-
todian of the estate. From this amendment

INDIAN COUNCIL HOUSE IN

LETCHWORTH PARK.

THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS. |

A BIT OF ROADWAY IN LETCHWORTH PARK.
serious danger was threatened to the proper-
ty in the future, because power companies,
through new legislation and permission from -
State officials, might be able, in spite of the
gift, to acquire the right to dam the stream
above the falls. ‘‘ With all dué respect,”
wrote Mr. Letchworth to a friend in Al-
bany, “ I cannot accept the amended bill, but
must regard a vote for it as a vote not to
accept the gift.” A
few days later the ob-
jectionable amendment
was stricken out, and
the original bill passed.
The name of the park
was then changed by
the Legislature from
Glen Iris to Letch-
worth Park, “‘ to com-
memorate the humane
and noble work in pri-
vate and public chari-
ties to which his (Mr.
Letchworth’s) life. has
been devoted, and in
recognition of his emi-
nent services to the peo-
ple of the State.”

A visitor to Letch-
worth Park, as it now
exists, would probably

Zi : THE FAMOUS PORTAGE BRIDGE

571

A
|
J
if

ee

ACROSS THE GENESEE RIVER.

(A prominent feature of the Letchworth Park landscape.)

approach it from Portageville, a little station
on that line of the Erie Railway which runs
from Hornellsville to Buffalo. Portageville
stands at one end of the famous Portage
Bridge over the Genesee gorge. This bridge
is 800 feet long and 234 feet high, and has
been familiar in’ many photographs and en-
-gravings. After walking across the bridge
the visitor enters Mr. Letchworth’s domain
by descent of a stair-
way and thence may
drive or walk along a
well-constructed wind-
ing roadway through
the virgin forest until,
at a distance of about a
mile, he reaches a stone
gateway through which
he passes to the door-
way of Mr. Letch-
worth’s home. This
house fronts on the can-
yon, and overlooks the
middle, or larger, of
the three cascades, the
walls of the canyon
there rising from the
base of the-falls to a
height of 350 feet.

A spacious lawn
spreads out before the

house and reaches the briuk of the chasm,
with a lake at one side of it, and a fountain in
the center of the lake. . Uhe visitor notes the
almost tropical luxuriance of the vegetable
life around him. ‘The grass of the lawn is

wonderfully thick and green; the trees,
whether of maple, beech or evergreen, display
a marvelous thickness of foliage and surpris-
ing symmetry of form. All this, of course, is

GORGE OF THE GENESEE, INCLUDING UPPER AND MIDDLE FALLS,

PARTIAL VIEW OF MIDDLE FALLS.
due to the constant refreshment which grass
and leaves obtain from the spray rising from
the waterfalls. Botanists find here a greater
variety of plant life than is to be found else-

“ee

VIEW ACROSS

THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

where in New York, and more song birds in
the trees than anywhere else in the State. ‘Che
waterfalls, with the rapids between them,
make a combined descent of 340 feet within
the park. The canyon rises in places twenty
feet higher than the Palisades opposite New
York City, and continues beyond the park in
an impressive curve, the walls still high, but
the water comparatively still, for a distance
of about fourteen miles.

Soon. after taking possession of his early
purchases Mr. Letchworth began to make
improvements, and has continued to do so
down to the present time. It is estimated
that his entire expenditures would make a
total of half a million dollars. Before his
time the marketable lumber had been cut
off, leaving large tracts in a state of melan-
choly denudation. A saw mill existed. near
one of the cascades, with the usual refuse of
such a place lying about it. Mr. Letchworth,
in so far as was possible, restored the forest
to its original condition. He laid out a public
highway, parallel with the river, and built
many private roads and paths in the neigh-
borhood of his home. ‘These improvements
involved retaining walls, culverts and gate-
ways. Several rustic arbors were also erected.

Maples planted by Mr. Letchworth have
grown to be as large specimens of that tree
as one ever sees. ‘Uhey are quite the equal in

GLEN IRIS” LAWN.

Ae SGENIG

GIFT TO NEW. YORK STATE. 573

UPPER FALLS OF THE GENESEE,
(Portage Bridge in the distance.)

size of many trees planted much earlier else-
where. Some Norway spruces have grown
to a splendor of height and thickness of foli-
age which seem almost to imply that the
original habitat of this tree was a tropical,
rather than a northern, clime. In the rear
of the house, but removed to one side, has
been laid out a large floral garden, oval in
shape, and surrounded by a hedge of ever-
greens, twelve or more feet high, this serving
as a wind break. Within this area familiar
flowers of the garden, such as roses, nastur-
tiums, heliotropes, geraniums,and mignonette,
grow to unusual sizes. One, rarely sees in
England more splendid floral growths than
this domain affords,—not even in Cornwall.

On an elevated plateau, not far from the
house, stand several interesting memorials of
the Indians. One of these is a section of
what is known as “ the big treaty tree of
1797, which originally stood near Mount
Morris. It was under this tree that Robert
Morris negotiated the purchase of the lands
of the Genesee Valley, the Indians reserving

~18,000 acres for Mary Jemison, the famous

“ old white woman of the Genesee.” Near

the tree stands the former cabin home of

Mary Jemison, as removed from its original
site further down the river, and just outside
the doorway of the cabin is Mary Jemison’s
grave, with the monument erected over it by
Mr. Letchworth.

Mary Jemison originally was buried on
the Buffalo Creek reservation, but the open-
ing of a street making necessary the removal ~
of the body, Mr. Letchworth caused it to be
taken to “ Glen Iris.” She was the most re?

-markable white woman ever married to an

Indian. Born on the ocean in 1742, she went
as a child with her parents to western Penn-
sylvania, where she was made a captive by

the Indians during the French War, and

afterwards became the wife of Hiokatoo, a
Seneca chieftain, who was the most blood-
thirsty of all the Indians at the massacre of
Cherry Valley. She spent forty years with
Hiokatoo, and afterwards prepared her
memoirs, which were published in a book
that is still famous with students of that
period of American history. She declared
in this book that, although Hiokatoo was
famous for his ferocity in war, he had uni-
formly treated her with tenderness; he had
sever once been insulting in his conduct,

574

Within this same part of Mr. Letch-
worth’s grounds stands a building in which
he has brought together a notable collection
of Indian relics, in stone and flint. It 1s
doubtful if another collection so large ‘as

this, or so interesting in all its features, exists

THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

elsewhere in the State. Mr. Letchworth
has received from the Indians a name in
their own language,—‘ Hai-wa-ye-is-tah,’—
which means “ “The man who always does the
right thing.” It is not alone an Indian who
can speak of him in such words as these.

OCEAN-BEACH RESERVATIONS FOR Wie

YORK

Gh y-.

BY WILLIAM H. ALLEN.

HE same week that the press of the coun-
try announced the gift. of $10,000,000
for the Russell Sage Foundation the fiscal
authorities of New York City added to the
map of the city 7000 feet of ocean beach at
Rockaway for a seaside park and sanitarium.
In addition, authority was given to secure
for the public in perpetuity an ocean park at
Coney Island. So conventional are our ideas
of benevolence that the private gift invokes
news comment throughout the world, while
the gift of the Atlantic Ocean to 4,000,000
of people almost escapes notice. A private
donor of millions is canonized, while the
benevolent motives of the public official are
lost sight of in the turmoils of business and
politics.
In January, 1906, Mayor McClellan’s
message called attention to. the fact that
Greater New York, with more available

ocean beach than any other city in the world,
had but a paltry thousand feet that it could
call its own. He had a bill prepared author-
izing the city to spend $2,500,000 for the
establishment of a seaside park where millions
could enjoy a respite from the monotonous
shop and overheated tenement, and where
private societies and the city might erect, back
from the high-water mark, convalescent
homes for use in winter as well as summer.

For two years the opportunity and the need
had been described by the Metropolitan
Parks Association, the Outdoor Recreation
League, and the New York Association for
Improving the Condition of the Poor. The
papers took turns in featuring New York’s
lack of free ocean beach where it should have
been beach rich. So enthusiastically was the
project supported by the public that a Repub-
lican Legislature and Republican Governor

OUT-OF-DOOR, SEA-AIR SUBSTITUTE FOR HOSPITAL WARDS.

_OCEAN-BEACH RESERVATIONS FOR NEW YORK CITY.

575

“SEA BREEZE’ BUILDINGS AND RECREATION. PIER.

aided a Democratic Mayor to make this gift
of health.

The first institution to be erected will be a
seaside hospital for crippled children, victims
of non-pulmonary forms of tuberculosis. For
this $250,000 was raised by the New York
Association for Improving the Condition of

the Poor, which will begin construction at
once. It is expected that within a short time
charitable societies owning about 1500 feet
of land at Coney Island will exchange this
property for sites at Rockaway, making thus
the nucleus of the people’s seaside park at
Coney Island.

NEW YORK’S CHILDREN BATHING AT “SEA BREEZE.”

A WESTCHESTER COUNTY LANDSCAPE ALONG THE LINE OF

THE PROPOSED BRONX-RIVER PARKWAY,

NEW YORK’S PROPOSED BRONX-RIVER
PARKWAY.

HILE the suburban development to the
northward of New York City has
been disappointing, in the main, from an
esthetic point of view, the situation is not
altogether hopeless. “he scenic features of
Westchester county, long ago described by
Cooper and Irving, have not been wholly
marred by the ruthless hand of “ improve-
ment.” Here and there a tract of moodland
preserves its native beauties. “The rugged
hills and ravines, although in
many instances denuded of
trees, still give an interesting
variety to the landscape. Oc-
casionally a sightly knoll or
slope has come into the posses-
sion of men who have had
enough consideration for na-
tures prior rights to make
their improvements conform
as far as possible to the origi-
nal contour of the Jand. From
some of these elevations fine
views. may be had of miles of
green and peaceful country-
side.

Through the heart of this
region, about midway between
Long Island Sound and the
Hudson, and nearly parallel
to the latter, runs the Bronx
River, a small stream, which
in most of its course is little

more than a brook, and occupies a narrow val-
ley some fifteen miles Jong. After the Bronx
enters New York City on its northern bounds
It passes into what is known as Bronx Park,
an extensive reservation including the city’s
botanical and zoological gardens. ‘The me-
tropolis is therefore deeply interested in the
sanitary purity of this stream, which, of
course, is determined by conditions at its
head waters.

COURSE OF THE BRONX THROUGH ONE OF THE WESTCHESTER

TOWNS.

(The unsightly and unsanitary features presented in this pic-
ture will be removed by the creation of the parkway.)

% SYLVAN BEAUTIES STILL PRESERVED IN NEW YORK CITY.

It was this latter consideration that led parkway to follow the course of the little
directly to the conception of a project for a river from Bronx Park northward to Ken-

VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE SHOWN IN. THE PICTURE ABOVE, REVEALING THE ENCROACHMENTS OF
COM MERCE,

INDUSTRY INVADING NATURES HAUNTS,—A SCENE ON THE BRONX IN WESTCHESTER

(To restore the right bank to a condition

something like that of the left bank will be one

A iia =

%

a
]
4

COUNTY.*
of the objects

of the Parkway Commission.)

sico reservoir, amid the Westchester hills.
Acquiring by condemnation a strip of land
from 300 to 1000 feet wide, along both banks
of the Bronx, the parkway commission will
be able: once for all to check the pollution
of the stream and restore its waters to their
original state of purity. Without some con-
trol of this sort the stream is rapidly becom-
ing-a public nuisance. It is only a question
of time when it. will have to be dealt with as
a sewer.

Apart from the question of sanitation, the
preservation of scenic features would justify
such a work as the proposed parkway. For
several miles in Westchester county the banks
of the Bronx are wooded and remain almost
as they were when white men first came to
the region, more than two centuries ago; but
if steps are not taken very soon to secure pos-
session of these wooded banks they will be
despoiled of their beauty forever. It would

*The photographs accompanying this article,
taken by Col. BE. A. Havers, are reproduced by the
courtesy of the Bronx-River Parkway Commission.

be a shame to permit the needless sacrifice
of these bits of woodland scenery, within
twenty miles of New York City, now that
they have survived to this late day the rav-
ages of real-estate companies and suburban-
lot speculators.

Besides ministering to the city’s esthetic
needs, the Bronx-River parkway will offer a
direct and practical connection between New
York’s park system and the open country to
the northward. It will be the chief boule-
vard leading out of the city. From the limits
of Bronx Park it will form a continuous
driveway for fifteen miles, to the great Ken-
sico reservation of 4000 acres which is soon
to be established in connection with New
York’s system of water supply. The cost of
the parkway will be divided between New
York City and Westchester county, the
former paying three-fourths and the latter
one-fourth. “The total cost is estimated at
$2,500,000, the amount to be expended
under a State commission named in the bill
as introduced in the Legislature at Albany.

New York Botanical Garden Library

NCEE

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