Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-26
The City of Pittsburg is Everywhere
Well Represented.
ALL BOUNDARIES OBLITERATED.
Human Progress has Made the Whole World
Only One Vast Town.
SOME LONG ISLAND SUMNER RESORTS
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE p1sPATcH.i

steamboat, the telegraph, the phonograpl
and the Kodak camera have quite revolu
tionized geography. The old provincial ant
parochial boundaries have fallen down ant
gone into pieces beyond the possibility o
patching. That enthusiastic American wa
quite in the right of it, whatever the school
master may say, who declared that th'
United States are bounded on the north b.
the aurora borealis, on the South by thu
procession of the Equinoxes, ON the East by
the Garden of Eden and on the West by thu
Day of Judgment.
The world is one big town now. 1t il
built up somewhat more thickly in somt
places than in others, and it has pretty ex
tensive suburbs, yet it is really one big
busy town. This is the age of cosmopoli
tanism. We are citizens of the world. Long
Island Sound lies on the outskirts of Pitts
burg. From upstairs windows in Shady
side we can see the ships go by.
Take Fishers Island, for instance.
Fishers Island lies eight miles off near
London. You can see it from the New
London harbor, crouching low down in the
water, looking like the dorsal fin of some
giant icthyosaurian fish, or like the undu-
UdCk Ol an dlllSdGOI
When you get over to it-an hours merry
journey on the steamer Skipjack-you find
a charming piece of land, with hills and
valleys, and pretty cottages nestled among
them, and pleasant stretches of beach, and
glimpses of fresh water lakes, and q splen-
did sweep of wide ocean in front of you.
HE OWNS AN ISLAND.
This whole big island, some 5000 acres,
which is set down in the map as belonging,
for some occult reason, to New York, would
better be credited in future editions to
PENNSYLVANIA, because it is owned-almost
all OF it-by a citizen of Pittsburg. Mr..
E. NJ. Ferguson can lean against the stone
pillars of the breezy porch of his charming
cottage, and reflect that, like Robinson
Crusoe, he is monarch of all he
surveys-or very nearly. Mr.. Fergu-
son intends to develop the island,
laying out good roads, employing all
the natural advantages, and making attrac-
tive corner lots for cottages. You can get
almost everything on Fishers Island,
except full dress receptions. There Is good
surf bathing at the South Beach. There is
excellent exercise for swimmers, and pleas
ure and safety for children in the quiet
waves of Little Hay Harbor. Clear, cool
springs supply the cottages with abundant
water. Birds, wild flowers and sunsets
and even sunrises, if one cares for them
are served fresh every day in all parts of
the island at your own door without stint.
A camp of soldiers is stationed this sum-
mer on one corner of the island. Their
white tents add interest to the landscape,
and the bugle calls and the music of the
military band morning and evening make q
pleasant sound, the sea booming away an
of deep bass.
Mr.. Ferguson can entertain his fortunate
friends not only by showing them the sur
face of his island by way of the road, but by
taking them around the outside of it in his
,ruise in the Vega last week, getting
ine luck at mackerel fishing with hand
ines off Block Island, skirting the shores of
Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and get
ling good sight of the start of the New
York Yacht Clubs race, beside the lightship
It Brenton's Reef, near Newport.
SHELTER ISLANDS GLORY.
spent a day or two at Shelter Island, at
he Manhanset House, which looks out over
Shelter Island Sound, and is much resorted
% by New Workers. One afternoon Mr..
W ood, the principal owner of the hotel. took
ne fine drive all over tie island The
ylory of Shelter Island is its beautiful and
trees. You journey about along
hady country roads, bordered with alternate
arm and forest, catching glimpses at fire.
Iuent turns of the way of the blue sea, which
les all about you, and you have a coniunc-
ion of country and ocean which is singular
md delightful. At Prospect there is quite
colony of cottages. About the middle of
he island Prof Horsford lives, a man we'll
Known by name to all readers of advertise
nents-and what literature that field is
,etting to be!-as the manufacturer of acid
phosphate.
Visitors to the Thousand Islands will re-
member how the neighborhood of Mr.. War |
ler's residence is decorated Cor desecrated) |
With big reminders of his "Safe'' remedies. |
There is nothing of this sort of thing in |
Shelter Island. Prof. Horsford lives in |
he old Sylvester house-the oldest house on |
he Island. The Quakers fed here in the |
Id days of the Massachusetts, persecution, |
nd the Sylvester family, who had big |
rockets reinforced by big hearts, took them 1
n and gave them shelter. So that Shelter
sland deserves its name by history as we'll |
s by geography. The old house stands
trong yet, its brick and timber brought |
rom England, good for hundred gales
John Fox stood on those front steps once
nd preached to the Indians, the Spirit
1oving him. And Whitfield made a stop
ere and left the memory of stirring ser
ION behind him. The old mansion has a
aunted looking-glass that would be worth
lille, if were genuine. A real haunted
'oking-glass, into which looking, you could
be faces which have long been dust, a win
ow into the past that would be worth peer
lg into at the ghostliest hour of the black
IT night, even in
THIS QUIET ISLAND.
There would be faces which we would be
lad to see-Stephen Goodyear, merchant.
New Haven, who sold Shelter Island in
j51 for Il 800 pounds of good merchantable
luscovado sugar. pretty Patience Syl-
ester, who, with her sister, Grissell, was
WED to shore on Sundays for service in a
anopied barge propelled by six strong
egro slaves, and met her destiny one
leasant Sunday in the person of bright
oung Frenchman, Huguenot, who pres
ltly found shelter in the sheltering island:
OK and Whitfield, and the Indians to
hom they preached; even Captain Kidd,
ho buried treasure here, in one of those
iding places which seem to have been as
lmerous as Washington's headquarters,
I'D whom we may imagine, with his pirate
,mpanions, peering through the Sylvester
indows and getting reflected in the quick
lrface OF the glass-these would be ghosts
orth getting acquainted with!
Shelter Island does not shelter many
ittsburgers this summer, but at Greenport,
hich is opposite in plain sight, the Rev.
r. White, of st. Andrews Church, anchors
S yacht Hermes, when he is not skimming
rer the waters of Gardeners Bay. From
lelter Island to Sag Harbor is two hours
de in the steamer Manhanset, and from
lg Harbor to East Hampton is seven
lie dusty drive in a country stage. East
ampton, accordingly, has the happy dis
1ction of being seven miles from rail-