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The Water Works

About This Item

  • Title: The Water Works
  • Date: 25 August 1859
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01414
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 25 August 1859: 3. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Water Works." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01414.xml (TEI)
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THE WATER WORKS.—

The old Water Commissioners, we understand, have contracted with H. S. Welles and Co.,1 pursuant to the permission given them to do so in the act of the last Legislature, to build a closed conduit instead of a canal from Baiseley's Pond2 to the furthest extremity of the water works. The law authorised them to issue bonds to the amount of half a million for this purpose. The amount which they have contracted to pay is $450,000, out of which there will be a considerable deduction for the work saved on the canal.

The work on the reservoir walls is now completed in both compartments. The walls are lined with cement, and are now as smooth as a floor. Only the laying out of the path around the top of the walls, and the iron railing, remain, uncompleted. On Friday last a highly satisfactory trial of the engine took place. In twenty four hours it pumped fourteen millions of gallons into the reservoir—being forty per cent more than is required by the contract.

Notes:

1. Henry Spalding Welles (1821–1895) was a contractor whose company H. S. Welles & Co. was instrumental in constructing the Brooklyn Water Works. He also contracted railroad lines in both Canada and the United States. [back]

2. Baisley's Pond was a major supply reservoir for the Brooklyn Water Works located in what is today the borough of Queens. It was a former mill pond, named after its owner David Baisley, who had sold it to the local water authorities in 1852. It was also occasionally referred to as Baisley's Pond, Jamaica Pond, or Rider's Pond. For a period in 1857, it housed a team of engineers, including Walt's brother Thomas Jefferson Whitman ("Jeff"). [back]

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