Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/73

 A Rival Road Takes Shape In the adjacent village of Whitestone a somewhat similar situation obtained. John J. Locke had begun his tinware manufactory in Brooklyn in November 1827, and seeking room for expansion, moved to the unsettled spaces of Whitestone in 1854. The Locke tinware manufactory gradually grew to be the largest by the late 60's, and Locke, like his neighbor Poppenhusen, devoted himself to public improvements. The village grew rapidly and by 1875 had a population of 2,500.

When the directors and investors behind the Woodside & Flushing R.R. recovered from the blow dealt them by Charlick, they sought out Conrad Poppenhusen and John Locke, both well-known capitalists and both with a reputation for being actively interested in civic improvement. Both men gave serious consideration to the railroad project, and after some thought decided not only to lend their backing to completion of the railroad, but to extend it to their own communities. Both College Point and Whitestone were large villages by the standards of that day and up to this time were wholly dependent on antiquated stage coaches for connection with Flushing and the outside world. Bringing the railroad to both villages would not only give them the prestige of rail facilities that meant so much at that date, but would vastly increase the value of the extensive tracts of real estate which both owned by making the area accessible. Another possible consideration was the prospect of ready shipment of the output of both Poppenhusen's and Locke's factories to market by rail instead of by water or wagon teams.

In February 1868 the-stockholders of the Woodside & Flushing R.R. convened and elected as president Orange Judd, and as secretary Elizur B. Hinsdale. Both men were dynamic Flushingites, and energetically dedicated themselves to the completion of the projected road. Orange Judd was born upstate in 1822, went to college in Connecticut, and in 1853 removed to New York where he became editor of the American Agriculturalist. From 1854 to 1863 he was also agricultural editor of the New York Times. In 1866 he was in a position to buy out the American Agriculturalist, and by his untiring efforts, saw its circulation rise to 100,000. It was at this point in his career that he began to interest himself in railroad affairs, and probably owing to his civic prominence at the time, was elected president by the board of directors.