This circumstance that the Bronx scheme involved, as one of its essential features, the conversion of the Harlem River into a mere producer of water power -- and that in perpetuity -- strikingly illustrates how contemptuously the Harlem and Spuyten Duyvil waterway was rated. When it became certain, in 1831, that the water-supply problem was to find its solution in a continuous aqueduct from the Croton -- such a continuous aqueduct being practicable in this case because of the Croton's sufficiently lofty elevation above tide, -- il was proposed to carry the aqueduct across the Harlem River by a low siphon bridge, as the least expensive work. In that connection no thought was given to possible objections on the score that the construction would permanently close the waterway against naviga-

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

COUNTY

tion. Tlie navigation of the Harlem was already completely obstructed by Macomb's Dam, and the addition of a new obstruction did not in the least trouble the New York public mind. But in 1838 a bold stroke by the citizens of our Town of Westchester suddenly compelled the New Yorkers to change their attitude toward the Harlem. On March 3 of that year the Westchester

THE CROTON

WATER

CELEBRATION,

1842.

land-owners held a meeting at Christopher Walton's store, at Fordham Corners, and appointed a committee to memorialize the legislature against the proposed low bridge, and also to ascertain the best method of removing the existing obstructions in the Harlem River. The committee, acting on the advice of counsel, decided to proceed against Macomb's Dam as a nuisance and to clear a passage-way for vessels through it. The resulting transactions are thus described by Mr. Fordham Morris in his History of the Town of Westchester: Lewis G. Morris, then quite a young man, was, by the votes of his associates, intrusted with the leadership of the fig-lit.