North Greenwich Farms; Silas E. Mead Sells Property (1910)

Source: Greenwich Graphic. Saturday, January 22, 1910. Page 1.

It Is Said That a Syndicate Controlled by the N. Y., W. & B. Road is Buying Property in That Section.

It came somewhat as a surprise to the friends of Assessor Silas E. Mead other residents of Greenwich, when it was announced that he had signed a contract for the sale of his three hundred acre farm On Upper King Street, near Quaker Ridge. It is one of the most sightly sections of this locality of highlands, and one of the few farms remaining in a family who have held the title through half a dozen generations. Some years ago many of the Greenwich farms had come to their owners by descent through the family, the original purchase having been made of the Indians. There are not many left where they have remained in one family so long. The price, report says, is something over $100,000.

There is said to be a boom in farm lands all through this section, due to the proposed building of the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway, the survey which crosses the Mead farm, and as far up Westchester County as Bedford, thousands of acres of land have been sold, through a real estate firm of that section to a syndicate of young wealthy New York men, who see possibilities of making big returns from speculating in these lands, which they expect to sell in large tracts to city men of abundant means, who want to develop the same according to their own peculiar ideas and taste for their suburban homes.

It is expected that the real estate market throughout that entire section will be very active in the coming spring. And fact a like condition has never hitherto existed in Westchester county. Farm lands have brought good prices, but have chiefly been purchased by those intending to follow farming as a means of likelihood. But now and then a particularly attractive property has been taken over by some enterprising New Yorker, who has secured a fine estate. Yet in the present circumstance these lines are not sought for such home sites. And in the near future Westchester county and the adjoining town of Greenwich, will be notable as the finest residential section with the most costly suburban homes anywhere in the vicinity of the metropolis.

Another farm it recently sold by N. A. Knapp is the James Husted Farm at Round Hill, the view from which is the most extended thereabouts, to R. J. Walsh, probably purchased for speculative purposes.