Supervisors At Work

New York, 1895

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH OF BONDS SOLD.

They Fetch a Fraction Over 107 — A Toll Road that is Labeled Dangerous — Stone Breaking by Prisoners at the County Jail.

The board of Supervisors met at the Court House in Long Island City yesterday. Mr. Seibs was absent.

Highway Commissioners Smith of Hempstead and Decker of Jamaica, complained of the dangerous condition of the Rockaway turnpike. Notices have been put up warning people that they drive over the road at their own peril.

The owners of the road, the commissioners said, would not put it in repair, and if the towns of Hempstead and Jamaica repaired it there was no way by which the bills for the work could be audited. They wished to know if the board could not make it a county road.

Of course the board cannot do that, the road being a toll road owned by a corporation. The county would first have to buy the franchise, and the company is asking a big price for it. Proceedings might be taken to have the charter declared forfeited.

On motion of Supervisor Everitt, Counselor Van Vechten was directed to give an opinion as to the power of the board in the case.

Sheriff Doht made a requisition for 300 yards of stone to be broken by the prisoners at the jail.

Supervisor Denton said that a majority of the committee on Court House and Jail were in favor of discontinuing the breaking of stone by the prisoners.

The matter was again referred to the Committee on Court House and Jail.

The county has been robbed in the matter of this stone breaking. Thousands of yards of stone have been broken, and a good portion of it was carted away by contractors in Long Island City and Newtown, who said they bought it. However that might be, the county never got the money for it.

Sheriff Norton brought this stealing to the attention of the Supervisors early in his term, and the board gave him control of the sale of the stone, and since then the county has been protected.

Sheriff Doht presented for the approval of the board his appointment of Peter Boyle as night watchman at the jail, and that of Nathaniel Jarvis as foreman of the stone breakers. Referred to the Court House Committee.

Supervisors Everitt and Denton, the committee to whom was referred the bill of the commissioners of charities and correction of Kings county, for the maintenance of fourteen prisoners at the Kings county penitentiary for the year ending December 31, 1894, reported that they had examined the bill and found that the support of these prisoners was not a legal charge against Queens county. The bill was disallowed.

At noon bids were received for the sale of $100,000 of funding debt bonds, as follows:

Benwell & Everitt, 106 279-1000; N. W. Harris & Co., 107 51-1000; Jamaica Savings

Bank, par; Street, Wykes & Co., 105 60-100; Wynn & Schlesinger, 103 47-100; Isaac M. Sherrill, 105 7-100; George M. Hahn, for $50,000 worth, $103 7-100.

The bonds were awarded to Harris & Co.

Counselor Van Vechten gave the board an opinion on the question of the right of the city of Brooklyn to take water from the lands owned by the city in Queens county. Mr. Van Vechten holds that the city has the right to take the water, and the right is not affected by the colonial charters.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1895, p. 1.