tion of population in the county. In 1825 the total inhabitants were 33,131, and in 1830, 36,456. Mount Pleasant and Cortlandt continued far in the lead of all the other towns. Yonkers had a population of only 1,761. No new village was incorporated between 1830 and 1810. .This decade is memorable for the projection of the first railway enterprise in which Westchester County was interested, ami the inception and approximate completion of the grand Croton Aqueduct. The New York and Harlem Railroad, which traverses the central section of our county on the route to the northern end of its line ar Chatham, antedates all other railways of the county. But, as its

GENERAL

COUNTY

HISTORY

name indicates, it was originally intended to be a line between New York City and Harlem only, terminating at the Harlem River. It was incorporated on the 25th of April, 1831, with a capital of $350,000, which in 1832 was increased to $500,000, it being stipulated that the road should be completed to the Harlem River in 1835. On the 17th of April, 1832, another company was incorporated, the New7 York and Albany, whose line was to start at a point on Manhattan Island where the present Fourth Avenue terminates, cross the Harlem River, and proceed through the center of Westchester County. (At that period the Hudson River route was not seriously thought of,1 and indeed it was not chartered until 1846.) Owing to the great physical difficulties which had to be overcome in building the road on Manhattan Island, and the consequent heavy expenditures, the New7 York and Harlem line was not completed by the specified year (1835); 2 nevertheless, the legislature authorized further increases of capital. Meantime the New York and Albany Company found itself unable to carry out the provisions of its charter, and in 1838 surrendered its rights in AVestchester County to the New York and Harlem Company, which assumed the construction of the bridge across the river and the building of the road as far as a point on the southern boundary of Putnam County.