THE MONROE-CHESTER ROAD.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Routes Discussed.
Editor Independent Republican:
Each of the proposed routes of the Monroe-Chester State road has its advocates and its opponents. As the writer knows every rod of the way of all the proposed routes, having traveled the road for three score years, and all neither route abuts his acres, he thinks he may be considered an impartial judge as to the better plan.
First- As to the distance. Both the terms and the terminals are indefinite, as both villages include a full mile of principal street, so let us locate a fair block or corner. The business blocks or corners of Monroe. The bank, the postoffice, the railroad depot and ninety per cent. of the stores, not to mention the hotels, are gathered about the depot square. As to Chester: The bank, the post office, the railway depot, 75 per cent. of the stores and the hotels are just at the depot also. The route favored by wealthy automobilists is located one-quarter of a mile away from the business center of Monroe by the nearest street, and full half a mile from a good part of village. The Chester end of this same proposed automobile speedway enters the corporation limits of that village a full mile from its center of business and leaves the village for the Chester-Goshen State road more than one-half mile from that center, accommodating but few of the residents of that town.
Second- The proposed Oxford Depot route. This as proposed will accept the selection of the other route at Monroe village or agree upon the route through the principal village street, so there is no friction about that matter. But let the new road cross the Erie railroad at Top of Oxford, over the present Galloway highway bridge. Then using the present highway free of cost until it enters upon the farm of Robert Hunter, keeping at the foot of the hill toward the railroad, diverging to the right again as it nears the woods of S. M. Davis and joins the old highway near \"Idlewild,\" the S. G. Lent place, and on to Greycourt, entering Chester village just at the center by the depot. When we claim there is not a rod differences in these proposed routes we are giving the valley way the benefit of the doubt.
Third- The topography. Facts are stubborn things. As to the route or routes from Monroe village to Top of Oxford or Galloway bridge there is no controversy. But from the bridge to Chester is as the way from Rome to the Pontine Uarsh: \"Easy down, but to return, that is the sweat.\" So the valley or swamp route is the sweat, or the wet, as the Cromeline Creek that is the Nile of that route so often over flows its banks, and hundreds of acres of lowlands and meadow, not to say swamp, is for days at a time under water. One-half mile of the proposed route is through this bottom land. If the road bed is on a level with the soil then it will be at time, under water from one to three feet. If the road is raised one to three feet, then a dam is the sequence, and how much greater the overflow of good meadow, now dry and fertile. It will be lake or swamp, and all the way from this dam to Bull\'s Mills will be added hundreds of acres for which large damages will be assessed to Orange County, and if bridges are built yet the water will be stayed in its course and washouts and repairs will make this way a way of repeated and constant expense.
Fourth- Let us compare the number of farms that will be upon these two routes. We mean farms whose dwellings are just beside the road, as is common to our ordinary roads. By adding places say one-eighth or one-fourth mile off the way the difference would be very much increased. First the valley way, beginning at Galloway\'s, a point agreed upon by all the routes. One-half mile west of Galloway\'s is Ralph Y. Durland, not an applicant for this way; next is Nicholas Demerest, of the corporation of Chester. Only one house in nearly three miles. Now the Oxford Depot route. Beginning at the Galloway bridge we have: 1st, Robert J. Hunter; 2nd, the lands of Dr. Davis; 3rd, S. G. Lent (\"Idlewild); 4th, W. H. Woodhull; 5th, Charles R. Bull; 6th, James A. Townsend; 7th, William M. Leonard; 8th, Lewis Satterly; 9th, Henry M. Roe; 10th, Thad. Durland. Most of these farms are large ones, and they aggregate more than 2,000 acres. The Townsend, the Leonard, the Satterly, the Henry M. Roe and the George Seely Durland farms, all use this way 365 days in the year daily to deliver their milk to Chester creameries, while not one single dairy of milk goes or will go to Chester, as the Alex. Campbell creamery purchases all the milk made about Oxford Depot section.
Again, the valley route is through the depressed, sinky, cheerless bottom land, while the Oxford route is one of the most beautiful dry and picturesque roads of Orange County, its scenery worth a journey of miles to view. Numerous city folk have spoken to us of the unsurpassed view from Hunter\'s Hill to the blue Shawangunk hills far away at the west, and the Catskills 60 miles away at the north, while Chester, Goshen and Middletown fill up the picture.
This hastily written note is a just and fair resume of this State road question, from one who is unbiased and disinterested, as it is seen through eyes that look to the future good of the many. The writer believes that a highway for the honest, ploding, patient farmer is far more essential to the prosperity of Orange County than is as automobile speedway for millionaires.
Farmer\'s Boy.
