THE SUCCESSIVE COMMON COUNCILS, WHO HAVE DILIGENTLY, INTELLIGENTLY, AND PERSEVERINGLY CARRIED OUT THIS VOTE TO A SUCCESSFUL AND MAGNIFICENT ISSUE,

THIS VOLUME, RECORDING THE PROGRESS AND ACCOMPLISHMENT OF AN ENTERPRISE, ALIKE GRAND IN DESIGN AND BENEFICENT IN RESULTS, IS INSCRIBED BY THEIR FELLOW CITIZEN,

CHARLES KING.

PREFACE IN LAYING this volume before the Common Council and the public, it may be

proper to state the circumstances under which it was undertaken.

In October last, after the Celebration which commemorated the completion of the

CROTON AQUEDUCT, the joint Committee of the Common Council, constituting the

Celebration Committee, determined that a Memoir of this great and successful enterprise should be prepared, and by a unanimous vote confided the duty to the author of the following pages.

It was accepted with satisfaction, enabling him as it would, in recording the

progress and completion of this noble and useful work, exceeding in grandeur and costliness any ever executed by a comparatively small community, to claim for the city of his birth and his affections, credit for that far-seeing and disinterested public

spirit which, looking beyond the present, is content to endure and labor for remotest

generations.

In effect, water might have been obtained adequate to the actual wants of the

city at very much less cost, leaving to posterity the care of providing for its own need ; but the more generous view prevailed, and, in deciding as the people of New

York by their votes did, to construct an Aqueduct like those which, in attesting the