In olde New York; sketches of old times and places in both the state and the city . toads, snakes, and mos-quitoes, Fire Island Beach when I visited it in 1885,still attracted the summer visitor, and held its ownbravely with newer and more widely advertised strange bit of earth this beach is, to be sure — abarren, wind-swept, desolate sand-bar, interposedbetween the Atlantic and the quiet waters of GreatSouth Bay, pushed out nine miles into the ocean, solow and flat that it would seem the first winter stormmust blot it out, yet increasing year by year ratherthan diminishing. It is ea
In olde New York; sketches of old times and places in both the state and the city . toads, snakes, and mos-quitoes, Fire Island Beach when I visited it in 1885,still attracted the summer visitor, and held its ownbravely with newer and more widely advertised strange bit of earth this beach is, to be sure — abarren, wind-swept, desolate sand-bar, interposedbetween the Atlantic and the quiet waters of GreatSouth Bay, pushed out nine miles into the ocean, solow and flat that it would seem the first winter stormmust blot it out, yet increasing year by year ratherthan diminishing. It is easy to read its ago a sand-bar rose out of the waves nine milesoff the mainland of Long Island; built up by wavesand winds, it grew and lengthened eastward and west-ward, and in process of time formed a wide smoothbeach from Coney Island to Southampton, eighty-onemiles, broken at intervals by inlets through which thetides rushed to fill the bays formed by the barrierwithin. The first glance of the beach shows that manhas come over and captured it. Here is the brick. X Fire Island 237 tower of the lighthouse 185 feet high, the quaint cottageof Life-Saving Station No. 25, and the square signaltower of the Western Union Company. There is alsoa great hotel,* unique in its way, and a model for allseaside hotels, with rows of cottages attached to it,and a mile or more of covered board walks leading tothe ocean strand on the south, and to the bayside andsteamboat wharf on the north. As you approach from Babylon across the bay, thehotel looms up like the line of barracks at some greatarmy post, for it is long and low, with three rows ofwindows like the portholes in a three-decker. Thehost, Mr. Sammis, is a landlord of the old-fashionedsort, said to be the third oldest inn-keeper on LongIsland. After a business career in town as druggistand hotel-keeper, Mr. Sammis came to Fire Islandand opened a hotel on the sands. That was in first year his hotel was a chowder-h
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectnewyorkstatehistory
