Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/57



HEN THE BUILDING of the Flushing R.R. was first being discussed about 1850, a wave of enthusiasm spread through all the North Shore villages on the island from Flushing eastward to Huntington. The developers of the original Long Island R.R. had seen fit in the 1830's and 40's to locate the pioneer line through the center of the island, ignoring the old and populous villages on the north and south shore. With the Long Island R.R. opened through to Greenport in 1844, there seemed little likelihood of the railroad giving service to these wayside communities, especially on the North Shore, where the steep grades and the location of the villages in valleys at the head of deep inlets from the Sound presented serious engineering problems.

When the Flushing R.R. project came up, therefore, about 1850, the North Shore villages saw in it the possibility of realizing their dream of railroad connection with the outside world. It is difficult for us today to realize the deep isolation of these rural communities before the coming of the railroad. Life in these hamlets was static and contact with the outside world limited to stage coach accommodation once or twice a week. The railroad was not merely a tremendous prestige symbol in the nineteenth century, but a very real lifeline to the great world outside, for it annihilated the old obstacle of distance, and reduced the travel of days to hours and minutes.

As soon as the construction of the Flushing R.R. became a certainty in 1852, the villages to the east, particularly Huntington, showed strong interest in the project by booming the idea of an extension in the local newspapers and holding rallies of the townspeople. The directors of the Flushing R.R. were themselves open to suggestions of continuing the road eastward, and were not necessarily committed to a Flushing terminus. On August 30, 1853, a corps of engineers and surveyors commenced a