The Town Committee met at night, usually in the house of Mr. Swinnerton, Town Clerk; none but the town officers attended these meetings. The two annual town meetings were held in a small hall on Washington avenue, opposite the Morrison & Briggs carpenter shop; this hall burned later. Two or three informal meetings were held in a small carpenter shop standing in Mr. Swinnerton’s yard, on the northeast corner of Elwood and Lincoln avenues (this was the first Morrison & Briggs shop). Here Woodside was given its present name.
So far as can now be recalled the Town Committeemen were General Cumming, for the River road; Mr. Hine, for Washington avenue; either Mr. Phillips or Mr. Faitoute, for Lincoln avenue; Charles Akers, for the Bloomfield road; “a fine, old Irish gentleman for Soho”, and Joseph Dowling for the cross street. James S. Gamble was Treasurer.
A WOODSIDE TRAGEDY.
Possibly the only tragedy connected with Woodside was the shooting of Albert D. Richardson on December 2, 1869. Mr. Richardson was a celebrated newspaper correspondent and an author of some note. He had traveled over a large part of the United States and had settled in Woodside because of its rural beauty, having purchased the house built by Miles I’Anson, which now stands on Summer avenue, facing Chester.
A Mrs. McFarland, who was later known to literature as Abbie Sage Richardson, and who came of a good Boston family, married Daniel McFarland, the black sheep of a prominent New York family, and, after supporting him for a reasonable length of time, she secured a divorce. Mr. Richardson assisted her in establishing herself, and about this time McFarland, while under the influence of liquor, met him in the office of the Tribune and shot him down. Richardson was removed to the Astor House and lived for a week. He was a widower with three young children and, desiring Mrs. McFarland to look after them, he married her while on his deathbed.
WOODSIDE AND THE STREET CAR.
From the beginning and up to comparatively recent times Woodside has been compelled to make a continuous fight for proper street car service.
The first car track laid extended from the cemetery to Orange street, where it met the track which had been laid in 1862 from Market street. There was but one car, and that was pivoted on the trucks so that, a king bolt being drawn, the body of the car was swung around while the trucks remained on the track—this instead of reversing the horses to the other end of the car, as was done later. About 1865 the tracks were extended north through Woodside to Second river, to what was then known as “Flanigan’s station”, and for six years they went no further.
It was many years before the Woodside section was treated as part of the main line, all sorts of bob-tail excuses being offered us. Cars would come as far as the “Pump” (cemetery), and there passengers could wait for the “bob-tail” or walk as they saw fit. There was no shelter against the winter’s storm or shade from the summer sun. “Old Mose”, who watered the horses at the pump, which stood just about where the Washington avenue sidewalk on the west now ends, was possessed of a movable bench which followed the shadows of the trees as the sun made its daily progress through the heavens, and this was the only spot whereon to rest our weary bones while waiting. Mose was a good natured old soul whom every one liked, and was as much of an institution as was the old West-farm pump from which he drew the water for the horses. His “Now, William, let her propel”, when it was time for a car to start, became a by-word.
Naturally those living in Woodside were always grumbling at the poor car service furnished, and there was a constant fight with Mr. Battin, and later with Mr Barr, and many a delegation descended on the Board of Aldermen, and almost invariably its head and front was Mr. Hine who, while he loved peace, did not believe in peace at any price. The company’s charter required that all cars should run to the city line (Second river), and Mr. Hine, with his wonted energy, at once inaugurated an active campaign by writing to the papers as well as stirring up the City Fathers, and by dint of his “sticktoitiveness”, as he called it, he won his point and the octopus was forced to loose his tentacles and be subject to the law governing its agreements.