Jervis McEntee Diaries

Monday December 20, 1886

Jervis McEntee Diary Entry, December 20, 1886, from the Jervis McEntee papers, 1850-1905, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Monday, Dec 20, 1886 Sara and I drove down town directly after breakfast to do some errands and then up to the toboggan slide to see about giving consent to cut a tree. I found there was no need to do it in which the engineer agreed with me. It was a pine tree on the boundary line and I requested them not to disturb it. Then we drove out on the Flat-bush road, finding the sleighing excellent. Sara left me just this side the entrance to the woods and I struck off to the left along the swamps for a mile or more. I found the walking extremely difficult as the crust broke through at each step. I saw nothing I cared to sketch and made my way to the road coming out near the "Steene Raupe" entrance, followed the road back to the entrance of the wood and got into the fields at my left and passed the swamp where I made sketches the day Calvert was with me. Although it was a fine day it was not a picturesque one and there was too much snow covering the weeds and grasses. The things I sketched that day were common place and uninteresting today, showing that it is not locality but a happy combination of locality, with other conditions which goes to make up the picturesque. I came home through Ludlums woods and reached home very healthily tired after walking about three hours. I sat before the fire and read the paper until dinner at 5 which I had a most excellent appetite for. I ordered a sign made today to put up near the toboggan house to advertise the Chester St lots as numbers of people go there now to see the construction of the slide.

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