Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/100

 84 6th. A stenographic record of the interview between these two great figures would make interesting reading today. Charlick, in his business dealings, was notoriously obdurate, and he lacked the flexibility to be able to appreciate and evaluate an opinion other than his own. No publicity was given to the interview, and neither one made any comment on the results, but the lack of any further contact soon gave strong reason to believe that Charlick had refused Stewart's offer to assume operation of the Stewart road. Speculation in the newspapers in January of a falling out with Charlick induced Stewart to issue a press statement denying difficulties with Charlick or any other railroad figure. In late January 1870 Mr. Stewart engaged surveyor Ezra Conklin of Jamaica to lay out three different routes for his road west of New Hyde Park Road, one of which he would select. On the east the terminus was to be Farmingdale village. Conklin reported back in March with one line into Flushing, a second into Jamaica, and a third south of Jamaica. The latter fired the residents of Woodhaven and East New York into public meetings urging Stewart to build through their villages. When a delegation from East New York called upon Stewart early in April, he showed signs of favoring the Flushing route above the other two. This probably resulted from a meeting in the first week of April with Conrad Poppenhusen and Elizur Hinsdale of the Flushing & North Side R.R., who had reportedly offered to sell out to Stewart the old New York & Flushing route between Main Street and Woodside. The Hempstead papers in May confirmed the Flushing rumor. During the summer of 1870 Mr. Stewart kept his own counsel as to his choice of route to the annoyance of the speculators, and contented himself with surveying the road on his plains domain. In October, Stewart set men to work on an extension of the New York & Hempstead Plains R.R. northward through his property to Mineola. This road, which had its terminus in Hempstead, was then being operated by the South Side R.R. and had opened service September 28, 1870, just three weeks earlier.

On December 3, 1870, a contract was awarded to Mr. Patrick Shields of Jamaica for building the new railroad between Farmingdale and the New Hyde Park Road. The contract called for a double track and was to be completed by April 1871. In the last days of December the news that everyone had been waiting