Page:The Milestones and the Old Post Road.djvu/13

Milestones "A stray steer was found on the premises of the subscriber on the 5th of August last. The owner may have the said steer by proving property and paying all reasonable charges.

This also fixes the Bloomingdale name as extending as far south as Twenty-third Street.

The fourth stone must have been at about Forty-Fourth Street and we have this advertisement from the Mercantile Advertiser of December ID, 1814, confirming the location there:

"To let for one or more years, the farm at Bloomingdale, near the four mile stone, known by the name of Eden's Farm, consisting of about 22 acres of land, on which are two dwelling houses and 2 farms and to which may be added 2 pieces of pasture land of about 10 acres each. Apply to "John Jacob Astor, cor. Pine and Pearl Streets."

The evidence for saying that there was a second series marking tended as far south as Forty-first Street. It was acquired by Astor under foreclosure in 1803 for $25,000. So much for the distances from Wall Street.

The evidences for saying that there was a second series marking the distance from the City Hall is as follows: We have personally seen a stone which stood on the Road at Fifty-fourth Street during our boyhood, which was marked "Four miles from N. Y."

In John Austin Stevens' notes to the History of the Chamber of Commerce, p. 314, he says: "The five mile stone stands near the corner of Seventy-fourth Street and the Bloomingdale Road, opposite grounds lately owned by Pelatiah Perit (20th President of the Chamber) and the 6 mile stone near Ninety-sixth Street, in front of the property of Dr. Williams."

The Evening Post announced that John Moir opened the Bloomingdale Academy in 1815, located 5 miles from the city, on the Bloomingdale Road. This was at Seventy-fourth Street.

Samuel Beman, A. M., opened a boarding school for small boys in 1838 at the six mile stone, situated "on Dr. Valentine Mott's beautiful mansion grounds." The house stood at Ninety-fourth Street.

The 7 mile stone was at One Hundred and Sixteenth Street and the 8 at One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street, a half mile south of the junction of the Bloomingdale and Kingsbridge Roads at One Hundred and Forty-seventh Street.