PROBLEMS WITH NEW YORK CITY’S WATER WORKS

PETER COOPER. Autograph Letter Signed to Frederick Graff, New York [NY], [19?] January 1841. 3 pages, 9½" x 7½", plus address leaf which contains an Autograph Draft Letter by FREDERICK GRAFF in reply.

A remarkable 19th-century American businessman, Peter Cooper was a wide-ranging inventor, manufacturer, and philanthropist. Among many other achievements, he designed and built the first successful steam locomotive in the United States (the “Tom Thumb”), manufactured varied iron and steel products, and backed Cyrus Field in the laying of the Atlantic cable. Always regretting his own lack of formal education, he founded Cooper Union in 1859 to provide free courses in the arts and sciences to the public.

Cooper also had a long history of public service in New York City, where he supported an array of civic improvements. In this letter about the city’s water works, he demonstrates both his direct involvement in efforts to advance city services and his technical, inventive abilities (and, in his spelling, his lack formal education). Cooper writes here to Frederick Graff, the superintendent of Philadelphia’s renowned Fairmount Water Works, about problems in New York’s water system.

“With regard to the stopcocks...,” Cooper writes, “Perhaps one of the principle causes of this difficulty, origionates in the necesity that the Fire & Water Committee have found, of turning the water from the Sewer[?] on 6th Avenue into the Corporation well to be thrown up in to the Reservoir in 13th St for the purpose of extinguishing of fires,” and that water “carrying with it sutch a quantity of sand and clay as to fill up the openings in the stopcocks prepared to receive the lower end of the slide and thereby preventing it from effectually stoping the water....

“It frequently happens,” Cooper continues, “that the men, ancious to close up the water, press upon the screw untill the slide is so completely fasteded [fastened] in its place, that in attempting to raise it, either the screw or head of the slide is found to give way without starting the slide from its place. I have recommended in order to prevent the screws...from injury in future by rust, to have them galvinized, or in other words coated with zinc which will effectually preserve them from corosion. The stopcocks now in use here differ in several respects from the old english pattern. I have requested Mr. Norris our aqueduct Commishioner to give you an accurat description of there construction. I think it will be found of great importance to have all the screws connected with the stopcocks galvinized wich will cost but a trifle and will effectually preserve them from being eaten up by rust.”

Cooper concludes very graciously, declaring, “Please accept my thanks for myself, and in behalf of our City, for the kind and unremiting effort that you have made, to impart to us the benefits of your experience for wich we shall ever owe you a debt of gratitude.” He has signed in full, “Peter Cooper.”

At this date, Manhattan’s water came mainly from wells and reservoirs within the city, with the water distributed through wooden mains. In 1830, New York had added a tank for fire protection at 13th Street and Broadway, and this water was distributed through cast iron pipes. By the date of Cooper’s letter, the city’s water supply was insufficient for its increasing population, and the solution that had been devised, and that would be put into service the next year, was to take water from the Croton River and carry it by aqueduct from a reservoir there to distribution reservoirs in the city.

Philadelphia was a pioneer in developing a safe municipal water supply, and Cooper’s correspondent, Frederick Graff, was the designer, builder, and superintendent of that city’s efficient and successful Fairmount Water Works. A model for urban water systems throughout the country, the Fairmount Water Works was also a tourist attraction because of its combination of innovative technology, classical architecture, and beautiful park setting.

On the address leaf of Cooper’s letter, Frederick Graff has written out a draft of his letter of reply. In his very detailed answer, Graff notes that if Cooper is right about the source of the sand and clay problem, then it “will be obviated when you shall receive the Croton water which resting in the receiving reservoir will there settle its sediment and come to the city pure....” However, he thinks “there must be some other cause, either in bad work, or mismanagement in the shuting and opening those cocks” because “none of ours has failed.” He suggests a method for clearing sand and clay from the stopcocks, and then comments at length on Cooper’s proposal to galvanize the screws.

The letter is in very good condition. There is a seal tear along the centerfold, affecting no text, and a small tear in the margin that touches Graff’s draft letter, but without any loss. As befits a draft, Graff’s reply has numerous crossouts and corrections. Also, he wrote it with the four-page lettersheet laid out completely flat, with the result that his draft is written across the address leaf (page four) and into the margin of the first page of Cooper’s letter.

Substantive letters from Cooper are quite unusual, and this one has interesting content on 19th century technology and a fine connection to Philadelphia’s pioneering waterworks. $2000.00

This image shows only page three of the letter.

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