Up to 1885 the subscribers in the town numbered but five, but a new central office for Hartsdale, Scarsdale and Tuckahoe has been started at the Hartsdale Station, with over twenty-five sub" scribers, most of them within the town of Scarsdale.
It is only within late years, also, that Scarsdale has possessed telegraphic facilities. In 1881 the Western Union Telegraph Company established a testing station for their lines on the Scarsdale bank of the Bronx, within a stone's throw of Scarsdale Station. To this run nearly a hundred wires from all parts of the surrounding country and here is established a public telegraph office.
Although so sparsely settled, Scarsdale has been visited by several severe fires, which have invariably run their course, the facilities for fighting them being entirely wanting. In 18()3 the old mill which had stood for more than a century just above Scarsdale Station, on the Bronx, was totally destroyed by fire, nothing but the foundations and a few fragments of machinery remaining, and no attempts at rebuilding have since been made. In the fall of 1874 the residence of Benjamin Carpenter, on the high ridge to the east of the post road, was set on fire by an incendiary, and in a short time was burned to the ground, together with numerous out-buildings and barns and some live-stock. Some years after this a house of considerable size, which stood close by Scarsdale Station, on the Popham estate, at one time the residence of Robert C. and afterward of his brother, Lewis C. Popham, was totally destroyed by fire, nothing but the chimneys and foundations remaining to mark the dwelling once a familiar landmark.