Masonic Picnic and Concert: Masonic School and Asylum Benefit: 1st

“At an early hour yesterday—soon after breakfast in fact—the brethren of the hod and trowel began mustering in large numbers to celebrate their annual festival, and the Third and Fourth avenue cars were crowded to excess all day long conveying the enthusiastic Masonic picnickers to Jones’ Wood, besides the many open carriages and other private vehicles which might have been seen rolling along out of the city in the same direction from ten o’clock in the morning up to nightfall.

On entering within the grounds, the first thing that attracted our attention was a blind fiddler scraping away at his violin with might and main near the gateway, and making the strings re-echo in doleful strains the air of ‘Auld Robin Gray.’  A little way from this individual another blind fiddler, seated also on the grass, was essaying in a languid manner some festive jig, while a third knight of the catgut, still further on, was doning  [sic] away at the patriotic air of ‘Yankee Doodle.’  The blind element was apparent all the way down to Jones’ Wood, from the Third avenue railroad depot down to the gates of the park there must have been at least a dozen blind beggars stationed along the road. . . .There were two dancing platforms, one on an elevated plateau in the centre of the grounds, and another just on the margin of the river overlooking the limpid waters below; and here two fine bands performed all day the newest and most enlivening dance music, from the gay gallop and entrancing waltz to the romping jig and conventional quadrille, not forgetting an occasional polka and Virginia reel to further warm up the crowd of dancers. Dancing was but one of the many amusements provided; for there were swings and roundabouts, lectures and speechifyings, songs by the Arion Glee Club, Scottish games by the Caledonian Club, athletic feats and pedestrian exercises, and any variety of other performances for dissipating time and amusing the masses, the whole winding up in the afternoon by a presentation festival, at which Mayor Hoffman presided, and in the evening with music and dancing again ad libitum.  

More than eight thousand people must have been present yesterday afternoon at three o’clock, and it would be impossible nearly to calculate how many were in and around the grounds at night. . . [continues with details of the events]”