Included is this typewritten text on pages 127-129:
Page 127:
(Note that this paragraph is part of the typewritten page in
Keyser's scrapbook.) The following article was written by the
late David B. Morrell in 1889, and has never before appeared in
print. The cutprinted in connection therewith, and which
represented the raising of the standpipe of the Germantown Water
Works, was copied from a lithograph, which was copied from a
painting by Newbold H. Trotter.
The contractors for building the works were Messr. Birkinbine,
Martin and Trotter, hydraulic engineers, whose place of business
was located at No. 16 Arch Street, Philadelphia. Henry P.M.
Birkinbine was the constructing engineer, and David B. Borrell
the superintendent of construction.
At first it was contemplated to put in an eight-inch hydraulic
ram, to supply Tulpehocken Street and vicinity with water, as
John C. Fallon was the owner of the greater portion of the land
or property on Tulpehocken Street, extending northwest to
Washington Lane, on Adams Street, and from Tulpehocken Street
southeast to Harvey Street, including Greene and Wayne Streets,
thence southeast to Wissahickon Avenue or Township Line.
The first plan was to build a small dam on Paper Mill Run, or
Crab Creek, as it was commonly called, to be located at a short
distance southeast of Washington Lane, to supply the eight-inch
hydraulic ram, build a tank at a suitable elevation to receive
the water forced up by the ram, and give a sufficient head to
supply the property previously described, but upon prospecting
the location a number of springs were found adjacent to the run
in the ravine between Washington and Walnut Lanes. After
ascertaining by measurement the number of gallons the creek
flowed in twenty-four hours, and estimating the number of gallons
that would be produced by rainfall, it was then determined to
form a company to be named and styled the Germantown Water
Company.
In anticipation of obtaining a charter from the Legislature, John
C. Fallon was elected President, and Christopher Fallon and
others were stockholders in said company. A charter was then
obtained from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, stock was sold at
$50 per share, dividends payable in water rents of $3 per share
per annum.
The eight-inch hydraulic ram was not put in, and work was
commenced in February, 1851, by digging a well at the
southwestern terminus of Tulpehocken Street, twenty-one feet deep
by twenty-five feet in diameter. A four-inch hole was drilled in
the bottom of the well, sixteen feet deep through gneiss rock,
which produced a considerable quantity of water. The well was
walled with an outer and an inner dry wall; each wall was three
feet thick at the bottom battening one inch in one foot, making
the walls twenty-seven inches thick at the top. The space
between the walls was four feet, which was filled with coarse
sand in order to filter the water passing from the dam into the
well. The walls were finished with coping procured from a
quarry.
Located on the southwest side of the pool, opposite Tulpehocken
Street, the water was dammed from the northwest side of Walnut
Lane, extending northwest to the southeast side of Washington
Lane. The depth of the dam, or pool, at Walnut Lane was
twenty-one feet and...breast of the dam one hundred and twenty
feet. The greatest breadth was two hundred and fifty feet. The
water at Washington Lane was not increased in depth by reason of
building the dam, but was taken as the level at that point. The
clay for puddling the breast of the dam was taken from ground
page 128:
between Tulpehocken and Harvey Streets, now Greene Street. The
puddling was put in dry, in layers of four inches thick, and
sprinkled and rammed until compact. The breast of the dam was
walled with stone. The wall was four feet thick at the bottom,
battening to two feet at the top. The puddling was put in as the
wall was built up and was eighteen inches thick. Drains were dug
leading from the springs to the well. The drains were walled on
either side and covered with flat stone, then filled with nine
inches of broken stone, and nine inches of coarse sand, in order
to filter the water passing from the dam into the drains
conveying the water from the springs into the well. These works
produced an adequate supply for Germantown of pure and limpid
water, except at such times as dye water from washings at the
carpet factory at Mount Airy was let down. An injunction was
eventually placed upon the carpet manufacturers, prohibiting them
from polluting the water in the creek.
A pumping station was built at the southwestern terminus of
Tulpehocken Street, the back wall of the pumping station fronting
on the well. The second story of the pumping station was
appropriated as a residence for the engineer, but owing to the
heat from the boilers it was abandoned and a dwelling was built
for the residence of the engineer on Tulpehocken Street a short
distance northeast of the pumping station. Two fifteen-horse
power high pressure engines (horizontal) of three-foot stroke,
and two six-inch horizontal pumps were placed therein, each
engine working one pump; also two cylinder boilers, thirty feet
long by thirty inches diameter, were placed on either side of the
engine room, and communicating doors were connected with the
boiler room. The suction pipes were six inches inside diameter
and took water from four feet below the surface of the water in
the well.
The stop at the dam was put down in order to fill the dam in
January, 1852. A heavy rain came whilst filling, which caused
the dam to rise twelve inches per hour. The dam broke, the cause
of which was the water found a way around the ten-inch discharge
pipe and washed out the puddling. The dam was repaired in
January and February, 1852, and as a preventative of any future
break at that point flanges four feet square were placed on the
ten inch discharge pipe, then filled with concrete and grouted,
which is now perfect at the present time [1889] thirty-seven
years since.
A station meter was placed in the ten-inch supply main in the
pumping station for the purpose of recording the number of
gallons pumped up into the standpipe each day, but it was not
satisfactory, owing to the extra quantity of steam it consumed to
pump against the propelling blades in the cylinder. A pressure
of 135 pounds on the boilers had to be carried to do the work,
which made it dangerous to carry that amount of steam, and the
meter was taken out. After the meter was taken out it was not
necessary to carry more than seventy pounds of steam to do the
pumping.
The pipe going into the standpipe being used as the ingress and
egress pipe, it caused a pulsation on the service pipes, and to
remedy the evil an ingress pipe was put in the standpipe from the
southeast corner of Wayne and Tulpehocken Streets in an easterly
direction into the standpipe. After
Page 129:
the reservoirs were completed the additional pipe into the
standpipe was removed.
Eight-inch pipe was laid from Tulpehocken Street, northwest to
Washington Lane on Main Street. Six-inch pipe was laid southeast
on Main Street, southwest side, from Tulpehocken Street to
eighty-five feet southeast of the southeast property line of
School Lane. Then it was laid across Main Street to the
northeast side, and reduces at Mill Street to four inches, and
was continued that size to Duy's Lane, or Wister Street, and
three and four inch pipe laid in other streets at that time
[1851].
The height of the standpipe at 120 feet was the level of a
contemplated reservoir to be built on Allen's Lane, southwest of
Main Street, of a capacity of 520,000 gallons. This reservoir
was built by the Water Company in 1853, and a four-inch main was
laid from Washington Lane on Main Street, southwest side,
northwest to Allen's Lane, and a ten-inch main was laid on
Allen's Lane southwest about 700 feet to the reservoir,
preparatory to building a reservoir of greater capacity, which
was built by the Water Company in 1856, the capacity of which is
3,870,000 gallons. The eight-inch pipe on Main Street, from
Tulpehocken Street to Washington Lane, was then taken up, and a
ten-inch main was laid on Main Street, from Tulpehocken Street on
the southwest side to about 150 feet northwest of Washington Lane
then it is laid by a deflecting line to the northeast side of
Germantown Avenue, and is continued northwest to Allen's Lane.
Then it crosses southwest and connects on to the ten-inch main
previously laid by the Company in 1853 on Allen's Lane. At a
point about 200 feet northwest of Washington Lane the four-inch
main is connected to the ten-inch main on the northeast side of
Germantown Avenue.
The four and ten-inch mains are now used as high service mains,
and are supplied direct from the pumps at the Mount Airy Pumping
Station, and supplies on Germantown Avenue to Tulpehocken Street
and southwest on other Streets as the case may require. The
northeast section is high service on Germantown Avenue to
Tulpehocken Street, East Washington Lane and other Streets
northeast, or as necessity requires. The balance of the
Germantown distribution is supplied by gravity. Stops are
arranged so as to supply any portion of Germantown by either way
temporarily as occasion may require.
The distribution by gravity is supplied by two sixteen-inch
mains, one of which is from the reservoir on Allen's Lane,
northeast to Germantown Avenue southeast on Germantown Avenue to
Tulpehocken Street; then reduces to ten inches, and is ten-inch
southeast on Germantown Avenue to Eighteenth Street, then reduces
to six inches.
The other sixteen-inch main is from the reservoir southwest on
Allen's Lane to McCallum Street, southeast on McCallum Street to
Carpenter Street, southwest on Carpenter Street to Greene Street,
southeast on Greene Street to Tulpehocken; then is reduced to
twelve inches southeast to Manheim Street; then northeast on
Manheim Street to Germantown Avenue; then connects with the
ten-inch main on Germantown Avenue, then southwest on Manheim
Street to Pulaski Avenue, then southeast on Pulaski Avenue to
Nicetown Lane, then on Nicetown Lane southwest to Cottage Street,
or 365 feet southwest of the southwest property line of the
Germantown Railroad, and connects to the six-inch pipe supplying
Tioga.
The original distribution was purchased from the Germantown Water
Company by the City of Philadelphia, May, 1866, for $84,000.
November 15, 1870, the twenty-inch main was completed by the city
and water passed over to Mount Airy reservoir from Roxborough.
The time passing over a distance of about four miles was three
hours and thirty minutes, under a head of ten feet and nine
inches in the Roxborough reservoir. From that time water has
been supplied to Germantown from the Schuylkill above Flat Rock
dam.
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Erected in 1851