Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/119

 The Heyday of the Poppenhusens To reinforce Mr. Barton's campaign, the directors sent out EJizur Hinsdale to Cold Spring, Huntington and Northport and even Herman Poppenhusen toured the district. Within a few days $17,000 had been subscribed toward the stock of the Roslyn & Huntington R.R.; the goal was set at $25,000. By mid-August all the stock had been subscribed and $6,000 had also been contributed as a fund for which to negotiate for the right-of-way between Cold Spring and Huntington. In August there was another mass meeting in Norwich of residents living between Floral Park and Huntington. So enthusiastic were the citizenry and so pressing were the claims of the rival villages that the entire sixteen miles of right-of-way were offered free to the North Shore R.R. on condition of immediate construction. The road was to run from Floral Park east to Westbury and then northeast, skirting Wheatley and Norwich to Cold Spring and thence to Huntington. On July 30, 1874, the board of directors at its meeting authorized the issue of bonds to the amount necessary to secure the prompt construction of the extensions. The bonds were taken by the agent of a foreign (probably German) house and on terms regarded as favorable to the company. In the last months of the year 1874 I. D. Barton addressed a gathering of farmers from Farmingdale and Bethpage about extending the Bethpage Branch northeastward. There was some talk as well of a branch to Amityville and no less than three routes were surveyed in June and July; purchase of the South Side R.R. in September effectively ended this scheme.

It is odd that with the public enthusiasm for an eastward extension reaching its peak, and encouraged in every way by the company itself, nothing at all came of it. In 1875, when we should normally have expected some action after two years of active campaigning, the newspapers of the day are strangely silent. We are left to surmise that the Poppenhusens had their hands full with the responsibilities and financial obligations of their already large network of lines, and dared not strain their resources by constructing costly extensions.

It is worthwhile at this point to pause and examine the Poppenhusen system at its peak. As of 1875 the North Side system consisted of about fifty-five route miles and the South Side about sixty-eight miles, a total of 122 miles. The main line which ran from Hunter's Point through to Patchogue was