We have received yours of the 18th and the blue prints referred to.

It would enable us to accomplish much more in our next visit to Trenton, if you could send us ever so slight a topographical sketch of the land for three to five hundred feet each side of the park, east of the railroad; that is to say, of part of the Buttolph property on the north, and of the Cadwallader on the south. I should think that a surveyor, knowing the ground, could give us what would be necessary in this respect, with a single day’s work. Contour lines of six feet vertical distance, only approximately correct, would answer the purpose, and the sketch could be given upon tracings attached to the printed topographical map.

One consideration has occurred to me with respect to our plans, to which you may not have given all desirable weight. The park will be visited by people in carriages, chiefly in the latter part of summer afternoons. For two hours or more before sunset, the drive along the proposed river road will not be a pleasant one, because of the glare from the river. Our experience would [102]lead us to think that this is a more serious objection than you might suppose. In the forenoon and after sunset, every one will prefer to use the river road in going to and from the park, except those who will be in some haste, and to whom State Street, or one of the other inland roads will be a short cut. But, at the time when the park will be most frequented, you will find, I think, that the custom will soon be established of avoiding the river road. Ladies will insist upon it. I mention this because it may be desirable that you should look out to have one of your roads between the town and the park, away from the river, adapted to accommodate a throng of pleasure carriages. None of them are so now. If you should take State Street for the purpose, the street railway remaining in it, it would be necessary to make it very much wider than you have now laid it out. I should be inclined to think that it would be to the advantage of the Cadwallader estate that this should be done, State Street being made a proper parkway, carefully planned with a view to at least four stately rows of trees. Property upon such an approach would, almost inevitably, after a few years, have the highest value of any in the city for residences.

Yours Truly