Some Hat boats which had heeii provided had on hoard a band of one hundred men ; and Feeks not opening the draw, Mr. Morris with his men forcibly removed a portion of the dam, so that the " Nonpariel " floated across. From that time a draw was always kept in the bridge, but for many years the passage was very difficult, the tide being so strong that it was only possible to pass at slack water.

The legality of this performance was subsequently sustained by the highest court of the State, Chancellor Walworth writing the opinion. " The Harlem River," he said, " is an arm of the sea and a public navigable river. It was a public nuisance to obstruct the navigation thereof without authority of law." At the time of this famous expedition the water commissioners had already officially adopted the plan for a low siphon bridge, to be "built over an embankment of stone, filling up the whole of the natural channel, and with only one archway on the New York side only eighty feet high." The estimates made on the basis of this plan indicated a cost of but $426,000, as against nearly $936,000 for the construction of a high bridge; so that the abandonment of the adopted project would mean an added expense to the city of more than half a million dollars. Moreover, the original calculations of the total probable cost of the aqueduct from the Croton had by this time been found to be ridiculously small, and it began to be realized that the ultimate aggregate would approximate or exceed $10,000,000. The disastrous effects of the financial panic of 1837 were at that period being fell in their full force. In such circumstances it is highly improbable that any change in the plan for the aqueduct bridge would have been made if the people of Westchester had not compelled itby their aggressive acts. ( >n the 3d of May, 1839, the legislature passed the following law: The water commissioners shall construct an aqueduct over the Harlem River with arches and piers ; the arches in the channel of said river shall he at least eighty feet span, and not less than one hundred feet from the usual high water mark of the river to the under side of the arches at the crown ; or they may carry the water across the river by a tunnel under the channel of the river, the top of which shall not lie above the present bed of the said channel.