Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/92

 76 foot of Borden Avenue, Long Island City, and were served by the East River Ferry Co., which operated boats between Borden Avenue and James Slip. The lease of this ferry was bought at auction in May 1868 by President Oliver Charlick of the Long Island R.R. Patronage from the combined roads must have been appreciable, for a year later, in June 1869, the ferry company put on the first large double deck boat on the river, the Southampton. Two years later, in January 1871, the East River Ferry Co. greatly enlarged and improved the James Slip ferry terminal on South Street in New York. A large section of the ferry house was allotted to each of the two railroads with waiting rooms, ticket, express, freight and telegraph offices. Finally, in the spring of 1872, the East River Ferry Co. built an entirely new slip at Borden Avenue to accommodate the increasing travel on the Flushing & North Side R.R. The usual crossing time on the ferry from James Slip to Hunter's Point was thirty minutes and was charged for the ride; from the foot of East Thirty-fourth Street to Hunter's Point the crossing time was only fifteen minutes and the fare the same.

A railroad post office was established on the Flushing & North Side R.R. in July 1870 with the appointment on the sixth of Mr. Samuel E. Aymar of Jamaica as Mail Route Messenger. He rode the trains and received the mails at each station on the road, sorted on the cars and delivered the mails from the city on the return trip. By this arrangement each village on the line received two mails daily. Mail from New York was received at Hunter's Point by both the Long Island R.R. and the Flushing railroad messengers, who exchanged postal matter with each other there or at Winfield station.

Telegraph service was brought in by the Western Union Co. in May 1868. Poles and wire were put in alongside the track of the New York & Flushing R.R. and the terminal office was in the Main Street depot at Flushing. In the first week of June 1868 the service was opened to the public. It was hoped to extend the service to Great Neck by winter. In July 1870 the telegraph was extended to College Point and opened to the public. At almost the same time a local firm called "The Long Island Telegraph Co." had completed and opened a wire between Flushing and Jamaica; the poles had gone up in April and the company proposed to build as far as their stock sales permitted. With the