Detail with Bell Factories from the 1880 Map.psd

Detail from the East Hampton 1880 Map showing three of the bell factories and the trestle in the background looking across what was then Abell Avenue and later became Walnut Ave and Watrous Street. The Watrous Street portion crosses the tracks at grade. The house just above the GONG BELL MFG CO sign is the D. W. Watrous house.

Reverend M. L. Roberts wrote in 1884, “The Air Line Division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad…enters the village of East Hampton, north of the residence of William E. Barton, and, crossing the main street, between the Free Methodist Church and the store of C. O. Sears& Co., and Pine Brook, near the residence of D. W. Watrous, on iron bridges, enters the cut known as Bishop’s Cut, or Hall’s Summit, the highest point of the grade in the town, being something over 400 feet above the level of the river.”

An early 1900s post card shows the train bridge replaced with an embankment. The trestle is now a combination of earthen embankment and a steel bridge over the creek just upstream from Watrous falls. The span over Main Street is gone.