Immediately at the Yonkers line are the lands of the American Jockey Club, formerly the Bathgate Farm. The property belongs to the corporation known as the Jerome Park Villa Site Improvement Comj)any, but the American Jockey Club is the lessee. This club was formed soon after the close of the Civil War, for the purpose of improving thoroughbred stock, and conducting race meetings honestly, free from the rowdy and gambling element which had brought them into disrepute. Leonard W. Jerome, William R. Travers and S. L. M. Barlow, of New York, John Hunter, of Westchester, and (Governor Oden Bowie, of Maryland, were the leading spirits in establishing the organization. It at once raised the standard of racing in America, and from this Renaissance of the turf dates the present prosperity and good management of all our large race courses, and the increased interest in improving the breed of horses. It is a curious coincidence that " Eclipse," the celebrated American racer of former days, was for some time under the care and management of James Bathgate, the former owner of the present park of the American Jockey Club.

To the east of Jerome Park is the farm of Michael Varian, in whose family the lands on which the old stone house stands have been held for nearly, if not more than, a century. Upon the crest of the high ridge, overlooking the Bronx Valley to the eastward, stood an earthwork erected by General Heath in 1776, so as to command the crossing of the Bronx at Williams' Bridge. This site has now been acquired by the city of New York for a reservoir, in which the waters