Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/37

 30 and sixty-pound rails. New culverts and bridges were also to be constructed to withstand heavier loads. Despite the winter weather contractors pushed the construction of the connection energetically in December and January; early in February the road was reported as "about completed", and to open by May 1. During the first week of April the grading of the roadbed reached completion and the laying of the rails had begun.

Just as everything was going along smoothly, the South Side RR experienced a repetition of its Rockaway experience. Mr. William E. Furman, ex-sheriff and a member of one of the pioneer families of Queens, lived in a mansion on the north side of Maspeth Aye. at 57th St. South of the house on the now obliterated Shanty Creek Mr. Furman had constructed one of the show places of Long Island, a complete trout-breeding farm. Fresh water from springs passing west into Newtown Creek was diverted through a series of S-shaped sluices, bedded with gravel and sand for spawning. When the surveyors laid out the track through the Furman property, they located it within about five feet of Mr. Furman's house. He offered the railroad additional land and $2000 to change their route, but they reportedly refused, whereupon he procured an injunction. A week later on April 28 the injunction was lifted. It was then given out that the trouble was not one of route, as the sheriff had consented that the line be run within eighty feet of the house, but as to the amount of land damage, Mr. Furman asking $8000 and the commissioners awarding only $2250.

With peace restored the work of grading was continued and some of the track work done. As the railroad approached closer and closer to Hunter's Point, it decided to make renewed efforts to get possession of the Hunter's Point dock. It happened that the Long Island RR owned the approaches to the dock, and because President Charlick refused the right to cross his land, the property was nearly worthless. The South Side RR then successfully petitioned the Legislature to open a street across the Long Island RR property, whereupon Charlick countered by producing a lease on the old Long Dock property to himself, which he claimed to have executed in his own favor during his brief tenure as president of the New York & Flushing (1867–68).

The South Side, checkmated, decided that if this lease could be vacated, they would build a depot on the Long Dock property;