OUR SUMMER DRIVES by Ezekiel Lemondale (1894)

'Ezekiel Lemondale,' a.k.a. Frederick A. Hubbard. 

"Lemondale" Describes A Six-Mile Ride Over A Shady, Rustic And Historic Road, And Tells Who Lives Along The Way.

Source: The Greenwich Graphic. Saturday, May 19, 1894. 

Featured on the October 17, 2023 Episode of Greenwich, A Town For All Seasons Show

The Post Road, as the main road from Port Chester to Stamford is called, is less attractive to me than other highways. The closer to the shore one keeps the more comfortable he will find it. Such roads are more free from stones, better shaded and less hilly than the Post Road.

When Mr. Parker took me to Cos Cob we followed Milbank Avenue from the Congregational Church, where we turned south, and, leaving the Union Cemetery on the right, we drove down a hill along Frederick Mead's woods to the railroad. 

On the left hand, by the waterside, the Bruce Memorial Home, a retreat for the aged, is conspicuous. Its architecture is old colonial and it seems exactly suited to the knoll upon which it stands. 

It is the wish of his fellow townsmen, as well as the numerous objects of his bounty, that Mr. Bruce made live many years to enjoy the pleasure of making others happy.

A few rods further south and we reach the former site of the old Davis Mill of which nothing remains but reminiscences. Crossing the creek above the tide gate we leave Davis Landing and the Held House in plain sight on the point below and plunge into the thick woods. 

The property on our left belongs to the estate of Isaac Howe Mead and the land on the right  is the property of Charles Mead. 

The owners of the Isaac Howe Mead farm, two or three years ago, had an offer of forty-five thousand dollars for the entire farm and declined it much to the astonishment of many. But the fact that they have since sold less than half of it for that amount, seems to justify their judgment of its value.

The Charles Mead farm is a beautiful shore property, which has yielded hay and grain for successive generations of Meads, who have been noted for their kindly dispositions and benevolent hearts. The ancestral home still stands -a mere wreck- in the rear of the new house, but its old Dutch doors and gray brick oven tell of prosperous and happy days to those who lived there a century ago.

In the keystone of the old arch which still supports the roof of an ancient potato cellar, Mr. Parker dug the moss from these words: "Noah Mead, 1812." The marks of the chisel revealed the hand of a boy, who, on some Saturday afternoon like the school boys of his day, left his name and the date for future generations to read. 

This same boy lived to honored manhood and died at the age of seventy-seven.

Turning north again through the woods, where the oaks are very old but very thrifty, and where the artists love to congregate, we shortly pass the old red brick farmhouse where Isaac Howe Mead lived and died. 

Cos Cob Harbor and the broad Sound are in plain sight, and to the left ones looks across the fields to the village of Greenwich with its tall spire on the hill and here and there a house peeping through the foliage. 

A few rods beyond and we cross the new iron bridge over the railroad tracks. It was at this point in the awful blizzard of March 12, 1888, that a passenger train lay for many hours buried in a great snowdrift.

Lyman Mead House, Silk Road, Cos Cob.

The massive square white house in plain sight to the right is the home of Lyman Mead, an ex-member of the Legislature and the father of a numerous family. I have forgotten how many children and grand children rise up to call him blessed. 

A little further on and we again enter the Post Road at Cos Cob. Its identity is always certain from the numerous lines of the telegraph wires that run direct from New York to Boston over this road. 

There is only one Cos Cob in the world and that is our Cos Cob. The gazetteer tells of numerous Bayports – a Bayport in almost every state - but no other Cos Cob. 

A few years ago some one– perhaps more than one – conceived the idea of changing the name of Cos Cob to Bayport. 

An application was made to the post office department at Washington, and the name of the office was actually changed to the very much worn-out name of Bayport. 

But, fortunately, the railroad company declined to change the name of the station. 

The school authorities clung to the old name for the District, and poor little Bayport is to-day only a small room in a small building where the residents of Cos Cob gather for their daily mail.

There are two every old residences in the center of the Cos Cob. The old mill and the unpainted store across the way are at Cos Cob center. The mill is very old– one of the oldest buildings in town –and the two old residences that look like ancient sisters, stand on opposite sides of the street. 

The one at the right as you go south is a popular summer inn -the Holly Tree Inn- and I fancy that within its walls are many specimens of quaint furniture of generations past.  The shining brass knocker upon the broad front door, the diminutive window panes, the steep pitch of the rear roof and the massive chimney, all tell their story of the long ago. 

It is said that the artists enjoy this inn, and Mr. Hobart B. Jacobs has told me that he knows of no better opportunity for pencil or brush than amid the surroundings of Cos Cob. 

The old mill is a study in itself, and many a picture has been drawn of its open door, with the grist-ladder miller within and the foaming water that has just ground the grist and will never turn the wheel again.

Tide Mill at Cos Cob, across from Bush Holley House, at the intersection of
Strickland Road and River Road. Cos Cob Mil Pond is to the left. 

An odd kind of a mill is a tide mill, for it will not serve you except at the ebb of the tide, and to take it at the ebb the miller must ofttimes work at the midnight hour. I suppose the boarders across the street when they hear the low rumbling of the mill wheel in the still summer nigh, fancy in their sweet drowsiness that they hear again the turmoil from the streets of their own New York. 

What a happy disillusion it must be when they finally are awakened by the song of the robins or the click of the carpenter's hammer in the shipyard beyond. 

Palmer & Duff's Ship Yard, Cob Cob. 

Its a great place to loiter in -Palmer & Duff's ship yard -where the "ways" are ways of pleasantness, and all the paths are peace. From there one looks down the harbor to the railroad bridge, across which the moving trains appear but half supported upon the iron trestle. 

Cedar Cliff, Edwin Booth's home. 

At the right is Cedar Cliff, once the home of Edwin Booth, and across the harbor, but further down, is the Riverside Yacht Club house, and George I. Tyson's summer residence– a large square house with the tower.

Far down, at the harbor's mouth, is Old Indian, a high promontory covered with trees, through which now and then appears it evidences have a beautiful house, the summer home of George Lowther. The shores are bold about Old Indian and the rocks are covered with a prolific growth of seaweed. The tall trees grow in native luxuriance and the turf beneath them, free from underbrush, is as soft and fine as money and patience can make them.

Leaving Palmer & Duff's ship yards and turning north, we soon reach the Post Road again. 

William H. Mead House. Cos Cob School site today.

The large, old-fashioned mansion near the enormous stump of the old oak is Mrs. Beecher's boarding school. 

Old Oak in front of William H. Mead House. Intersection of Post Road/East Putnam Avenue,
Orchard Street and Mead Avenue today. 

This tree, only recently blown down, it said to be a relic of the primeval forest. When it stood in all its glory, its beauty and symmetry it attracted universal aberration. 

Lenox House -Future site of the Pickwick Arms Hotel. 

We may retrace the way to the Lennox House the way by the same road or we may follow the Post Road. There is but little difference in the distance, but the latter way is harder for the team. 

We are back at the hotel in ninety minutes, having traversed a full six miles and seen one of the prettiest of our summer drives.