support in favor of a public utility designed to prevent such calamities in the future, or at least lessen their severity. When the City and State Governments finally gave their formal support to the construction of an aqueduct that would draw water from the distant Croton River Watershed in Westchester and Putnam Counties, Major David Bates Douglass, a West Point professor little construction could be completed, and then raised again in the spring when full-scale building resumed. But if it failed to rise, as it sometimes did in the economically uncertain years following the Panic of 1837, the workers were prone to engage in strikes. The most significant strike was the so-called “Croton War” of 1840, which featured not only a work stoppage, but also the intentional destruction of work in progress, as well as the physical coercion of workers who were reluctant to participate in the job action. This last component hints at the tensions that persisted among the laborers themselves, who hailed from several different regions in Ireland, and often carried their age-old resentments with them to the New World. Following an ineffectual intervention from a New York City militia, this strike was finally put down by a Westchester posse. Indeed, the Westchester landowners often resented the presence of the massive camps of mostly Roman Catholic Irish laborers, whom they perceived as drunk and unruly. They also resented the seizure of their lands for the aqueduct. In 1837, a group led by Theodorus Van Wyck drafted a memorial to the State Legislature noting that New York City had clearly reached the natural limits of its own expansion, and asking that the 1835 enabling legislation for the Waterworks be repealed. Sincere though it may seem, this memorial and other similar expressions may have actually been gambits calculated to raise the amounts that the State would have to pay for the condemnation of Westchester lands.1 Elsewhere, there was a great deal of grumbling over the means by which the Aqueduct would cross the Harlem River. Local residents, who foresaw the communities along this waterway evolving into thriving independent ports, were anxious to make sure that commerce along the river would be unimpeded. History of the Croton Waterworks Any historic preservation and interpretation effort focused on the Croton Waterworks necessarily relies on an in-depth knowledge of the history of the system. However, like the system itself, the history of the Croton Waterworks is extraordinarily complex, and any thorough comprehension would require not only a command of innumerable discrete pieces of data, but also fluency with the conventions of several different forms of history, as well as a grounding in fields as diverse as hydraulic engineering, real estate law, and finance. Readers interested in obtaining an in-depth understanding of the Croton Waterworks’ history should consult one of the many excellent books or essay-length histories listed in the bibliography. The following brief history seeks to highlight some of the more significant personalities, events, and themes that are crucial to a basic understanding of the system. The Croton Waterworks was built in response to the worsening conditions of the New York City water supply in the first decades of the nineteenth century. As early as the 1770s, many different systems for the provision of clean drinking water had been proposed for New York. Of these proposals, only a handful were ever implemented, none of which ever proved adequate in the long term. The most conspicuous and notorious pre-Croton system was that sponsored by the private Manhattan Water Company, helmed by the notoriously shrewd Aaron Burr. This waterworks, which pumped small quantities of fetid well water through a network of hollowed-out logs and relied on a woefully undersized reservoir, was obsolete before it was completed, and only appears to have been devised as a front for a much more profitable banking operation. of engineering who had worked on several large canal projects, was appointed Chief Engineer. Between 1833 and 1836, Douglass surveyed land, determined the course of the aqueduct, and designed many structures. However, because of disputes with the Water Commission, Douglass was discharged from his duties before construction began. He was followed as Chief Engineer by John Bloomfield Jervis, a man with no formal training but who had developed a reputation as a skilled engineer in the construction of canals and railroads. Jervis would go on to oversee the construction of the first phase of the Waterworks—which has come to be known as the Old Croton Aqueduct—so it is his name that is commonly associated with the design of the system. It is important to note, however, that much of what Jervis accomplished was drawn directly from the designs and specifications of his predecessor, David Bates Douglass. Construction on the system finally commenced in 1837. In addition to the many logistical and engineering-related solutions