Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/151

 Collapse of the Poppenhusen System ran east on an embankment through Floral Park. The connection was accomplished by a long gradual curve almost half a mile long built at grade level. With this improvement which was placed in service on May 27, 1878, the portion of the Central R.R. between Garden City and Floral Park was used as the main line to Hempstead. In mid-June a second track connection at Floral Park was completed enabling Long Island R.R. trains from Hunter's Point and Brooklyn to turn north onto the Central track to reach Creedmoor.

During the month of April 1878 Mr. Sharpe tore up the old Long Island R.R. track in Main Street, Hempstead, which had lain disused for two years. In removing the platform a young bonanza was found in the shape of stray pennies and other small coins which had fallen through the planks over the past thirty years.

The spring of 1878 marked the retirement of the Poppenhusens from the active management of the railroad, and in a sense, the end of our story. Drexel, Morgan & Co., who owned all the stock as collateral, voted it to install all their own men, and of the former officers, only Poppenhusen's old counsel, Elizur B. Hinsdale, remained on the board, this time as counsel to the receiver.

The new year 1879 signalled the end of the once proud Central R.R., opened with such eclat only six short years before. In February 1879 Mrs. Cornelia Stewart sued Receiver Sharpe for failure to pay rental on the portion of the Stewart road within the limits of the Stewart estate, (New Hyde Park to Bethpage), as required by the successive leases of 1873, 1874, and 1876. The receiver in rebuttal admitted the lease of 1873 and 1874 but pointed out that the Long Island R.R. was only an undertenant, the Central being leased directly to the Flushing & North Side, and passing to the Long Island R.R. in 1876 merely as an appendage of the North Side system. If pressed for payment of a large rental, Mr. Sharpe informed Mrs. Stewart that he would abandon operation of her road and leave her with a worthless and inoperable section of track without engines or cars, and unneeded by the Long Island R.R. Mrs. Stewart perceived the truth of this argument, and since the destiny of her husband's Garden City was involved, she accepted a com-