Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/61

 The North Shore R.R. John Bowne (3 acres), $3,500, both sides of Northern Boulevard crossing.

Edward A. Lawrence, $4,800, Bell Boulevard to Little Neck Meadows (12 acres).

C. H. Hunt, $2,100, corner of Main Street and Forty-first Avenue, Flushing.

Joseph H. King, $6,000, 157th Street to 160th Street, Murray Hill, (1¾ acres through nursery grounds).

Mrs. Murray, $2,500, 155th Street to 157th Street, Murray Hill.

The high King award represented not only damages for land but indemnification for the destruction of a large quantity of nursery stock. In order to recoup part of this outlay, the railroad ran ads in the papers offering a large variety of trees, shrubs, vines, etc. "for sale cheap." By the end of the year all the right-of-way from Flushing through to Little Neck Creek had been acquired at a cost of approximately $50,000. By the end of the 1864 working season over two miles of the right-of-way had been graded from Bell Boulevard to Auburndale Lane. Fifty men were at work on the line. The track was laid at intervals and in three places work trains were in operation. Even more might have been accomplished had not one of the sub-contractors absconded with the funds, leaving his men unpaid. The aggrieved workers quit in a body and the local justices had their hands full instituting suits for the recovery of claims.

In March of 1865 the ground had sufficiently thawed to renew building operations. The main efforts during this season were devoted to the digging of the cut through Flushing and its accompanying masonry embankments, and the building of the trestle across the Little Neck meadows. This latter task proved much more difficult and expensive than the engineers or the directors had originally thought. Four times as much piling was required than had been originally calculated, and it seemed that the meadows themselves were insatiable in the amount of fill they required. Day after day for weeks on end upwards of 700 loads of dirt and rubble daily were emptied onto the right-of-way and this huge mass sank out of sight within hours into the soft muck of the creek bottom, leaving no trace. It became necessary to buy fill, for the cuts along the line could not furnish