In former times, before railways existed, the local gains in population had invariably been without special reference to nearness to New York. A journey to the business sections of the city, even from Morrisania or Fordham, then involved a ride by carriage or stage of protracted duration; and thus for persons having daily business in New York, regular residence in any section of Westchester Comity was out of the question. Indeed, the tendency had steadily been toward a much larger growth in such remote towns as Sing Sing and Peekskill than in the nearby communities. Now, however, there was a reversal of this ancient order of things, and although Sing Sing and Peekskill, as well as New Rochelle, live, and all other places through which the railway lines passed, made respectable advances, the principal gains were in the section from which New York could be reached in the briefest time and at the minimum of expense, indicating the immigration of a large class of former New York residents. This fact is quite as strikingly evidenced by the nearly stationary condition of the exclusively agricultural townships of the northern portions of the county -- such as Lewis boro, North Castle, North Salem. Pouudridge, Somers, and Yorktown. Pouudridge, not entered by any railway line, actually lost some 300 people in the ten years. Amongst the significant local results thus brought to pass, the most interesting and important, whether considered in its original

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aspects or ill relation to its later developments, was unquestionably the foundation of the Village -- now the prosperous and handsome City -- of Mount Vernon. Unlike any other considerable community of Westchester County, Mount Vernon owes its very existence to the railroad. Yonkers, Tarrytown, Sing Sing, Peekskill. New Kochelle, Mamaroneck, Rye, and Port Chester, with White Plains, Bedford, and various other villages scattered through the central and northern parts of the county, existed before the period of railways, and doubtless would have enjoyed respectable growth if no railway had ever been built.