Water Commissioners characterized as "unreasonable demands ... by a portion of the inhabitants of Westchester" stymied the project. By law, engineers could not begin work on any lands not purchased or appraised. Anxious to get the work started and win support of the property owners along the line, that summer the Water Com- missioners named as Commissioners of Appraisement three highly regarded Westchester men: William Jay of Bedford, Abraham Miller of North Castle, and William Nelson of Peekskill. In the fall Miller and Nelson began work, traversing the county and appraising lands in the path of the projected Aqueduct, from Dobbs Ferry south to the Harlem River. Appraisals continued into 1838, with the appointment of John Targee, Samuel Gilford, and John L. Ireland as appraisers. Acting in a routine fashion, their surveys created little discord. Some appraisals, however, met with outright opposition. For instance, in June 1837, Jervis* monthly report to the Water Commis- sion recounted widespread complaints from landowners near Dobbs Ferry, requiring they "suspend [work] for the present."" Similarly, Jervis' brother William (a resident assistant engineer) wrote to him from Yonkers of legal complications and local action: / went up the line on Saturday for the purpose of getting a strip of land for temporary road — Dyckman seemed disposed .... Shonnard is to give me an answer this evening — he intends, however, making a condition that the contractor shall not build shanties on his ground The landholders whose land has been taken possession of, accord- ing to Mr. Dusenberry's directions have, as was anticipated, had recourse to law to protect themselves. I understand that they have been advised to wait until damage to the amount of $50 has been done, and then bring a suit against the water commissioners^^ (figure 35). Old Mr. Dearman is the only one who attempted to stop the men by force, hut finding that he was likely to get the worse of it, he desist- ed from the attempt. Mr. Dusenberry having left me no directions how to proceed in case any of the men were taken — for trespass, I went up to Sing Sing on the Monday after and communicated what had occurred to General Ward. The General promised to take the nec- essary measures for releasing the men, if arrested, by promising bail. There has been, however, no necessity as yet for his interference^^ The City Water Commissioners and County Appraisers were an official, removed target for Westchester residents; the immigrant laborers contracted to build the Aqueduct, whose shanties leaned up against local lands, were a much more immediate presence. A financial panic in the country, in 1837, raised the general level of disquiet. Though no violence seems to have erupted on the occa- sion of Mr. Dearman's protest, heated conflict among landholders, contractors, and laborers became difficult to quench during the 1837-38 construction season. Economic depression in Ireland had offered nothing to keep Irishmen at home, and during the 1830s large numbers of Irish arrived in America. Mostly Catholics from the southern and western provinces, by 1836 almost 60% of New York's immigrant Irish were laborers or servants.^* Large scale public works projects of the early 19th century provided relatively steady paid employment to these immigrants (figures 36 & 37). But if foreign, immigrant, sin- gle, Irish (and Catholic) laborers were admired by the engineers for their skilled mechanical abilities, they were especially suspect figure 35, above: David B. Douglass. Land Takings Map #41: Land of Justice Dearman, Jewell and Stephen Tompkins. 1836. Ink and watercolor on paper Courtesy Westchester County Archives. Andrew J. Spano. County Clerk Photo: J. Kennedy figure 36, right: Lt. Theophilus Schramke, Croton Aqueduct. Method of Tunneling in Earth, c.1837-46, ink and watercolor on paper Courtesy ESL Information Services, Engineering Societies' Library Photo: J. Kennedy to the more modest Westchester farmers, struggling to establish themselves. New York's Protestant urban society offered nothing familiar to ease their assimilation.^^ Arriving to work on public works projects, they encountered stereotypes of the Irish as hooligans, alcoholics, and even thieves. Rather than understanding the reality of poverty and homesickness in this strange new place and the meager work- ing conditions along the line, Americans in early 19th century Westchester swallowed whole, as it were, this pre-digested image of the Irish laborer. Occasionally, some day laborers who were bare- ly paid a subsistence wage, in fact fueled the farmers' stereotype- driven intolerance. Gabriel Purdy and Robert Tompkins, for exam- ple, complained of damage and petty theft by Aqueduct workers to farm lands along the line of the Aqueduct: One of them had a few rails, and some small wood ... taken; another a small quantity of green corn and another, a quantity of apples; but whether these articles were taken by the laborers or not they cannot state.