USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Quincy > Inaugural address of the mayor, with the annual report of the officers of the city of Quincy for the year 1904 > Part 9
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During the past year thirteen lots have been sold at Mt. Wollaston cemetery, leaving but a few lots remaining, so that it will soon be necessary to lay out a section of the new land pur- chased. This work should be done under a special appro- priation.
Early in the year the City Council made an appropriation for improving the Sea street side of Mt. Wollaston. This work was commenced under the direction of the Commissioner of Public Works late in the fall. The old wall was removed to the new street line, but the grading of the land intervening was
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necessarily delayed until spring. This land has never been turned over to the care of this department and it seems as if it would be wise for the City Council to pass some order devoting its use to cemetery purposes.
The carrying out of the lawn plan has been continued and during the year eleven lots were regraded and placed under this plan. The expense of this work is largely upon the owners of lots regraded. The improvement is so marked that it is an in- centive for others, and every year more orders are received for this work than can be accomplished. By doing a few each year it will not be long before practically every lot is put on the lawn plan.
Ten lots have been taken under perpetual care during the year, for which $1,288 has been deposited. The total amount now held for this purpose is $19,738. It was deemed inadvis- able that this large sum should be placed in one institution, and during the year steps were taken to separate the fund. With this end in view a part of it has been placed in the Quincy Sav. ings Bank. The larger part, however, is still deposited at the National Granite Bank.
Some little care has been given to the Hancock cemetery. The one crying need at this cemetery is the rebuilding of the wall on the Hancock street front. This wall is now in bad shape and constantly in danger of falling into the street. To rebuild this wall would require a special appropriation. Late in the year, the daily papers contained reports of a legacy for the care of this cemetery, but up to the close of the year no official notice of such a legacy had been received.
The receipts of the department for the year, exclusive of the amount deposited for perputual care, and the amount re- ceived from the perpetual care fund for interest, were $4,334 As the appropriation was but $4,000 it will be readily seen tha it is costing the citizens but little for its maintenance.
Statistics
Whole number of lots cared for
54:
By yearly contract
.
40
By perpetual care
14
203
There have been 225 burials in the two cemeteries as follows :
MT. WOLLASTON CEMETERY.
Adults . 146
Under 21 years of age .
.
77
Died in other places, adults
56
Under 21 years of age
11
HANCOCK CEMETERY.
Adults .
2
Under 21 years of age
0
Financial Statement
Appropriation
$4,000 00
Expended .
3,921 76
Balance unexpended .
$78 24
Perpetual Care Fund
Cash on deposit Jan. 1, 1904 .
$18,450 00
Added during the year .
1,288 00
Interest on same
757 21
Paid for care of lots
$757 21
Cash on deposit Dec. 30, 1904
19,738 00
$20,495 21
$20,495 21
1.
1.
C. C. Johnson Fund
Deposited in Quincy Savings Bank $150 00
Interest on same
6 06
Paid for care of lot
$6 06
Cash on deposit Dec. 30, 1904
150 00
$156 06
$156 06
)
f
at
49 01 48
204
Receipts
Care of lots year of 1888
$7 00
Care of lots year of 1889
7 00
Care of lots year of 1901
6 00
Care of lots year of 1902
6 00
Care of lots year of 1903
597 25
Care of lots year of 1904
589 00
Care of lots year of 1905
3 00
Care of lots year of 1906
4 00
Care of lots year of 1907
3 00
Care of lots year of 1908
4 00
Foundations
399 75
Lots sold ยท
1,162 00
Opening graves
1,028 00
Regrading
145 00
Use of tomb
73 00
Graves sold
225 00
Partial payments
14 00
Removals
42 00
Miscellaneous labor
19 00
Interest on perpetual care fund
763 27
$5,097/27
Respectfully submitted,
CEPHAS DREW, Chairman. GEORGE T. MAGEE, Clerk. JOHN Q. CUDWORTH, JOHN L. JOHNSON,
ALFRED O. DIACK,
ALBERT W. FAY.
205
Report of the Board of Sewerage Commissioners
QUINCY, MASS., February 20, 1905.
To His Honor the Mayor, and the City Council of Quincy.
GENTLEMEN :- Chapter 279 of the Acts of 1895, which au- thorized the construction of the Quincy Sewerage System, pro- vided that whenever the system should be substantially com- pleted and put in successful operation the Sewerage Commis- siouers, upon written request of the Mayor, should transfer the same to the Commissioner of Public Works, and that there- upon the powers of the Board of Sewerage Commissioners should cease and all its duties should be imposed upon the Commissioner of Public Works. The Mayor, believing that the system had been substantially completed, on December 5, 1904 requested its transfer to the Commissioner of Public Works, and by vote of the Board the transfer is to be made February 20, 1905. In view of these facts it seems wise' to your Sewerage Commissioners in making their last annual re- port to give a brief summary of the work accomplished by the Board since its organization in addition to the report of the proceedings and expenditures of the past year.
The Act of the Legislature under which the building of a sewerage system was authorized and the Commissioners ap- pointed was approved April 17, 1895, and was accepted by the qualified voters of the City of Quincy at a special election, July 9, 1895. The members of the first Board of Sewerage
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Commissioners were Paul R. Blackmur, Herbert T. Whitman and William T. Shea ; they were appointed by Mayor William A. Hodges and organized on Sept. 30, 1895, with Mr. Black- mur as chairman and Mr. Whitman as secretary.
The Board immediately took up the question of sewage disposal. Quincy with its long line of sea shore is made up of a number of distinct drainage areas and much of its territory is but a few feet above tide water. If it had been possible to build several systems each with an independent gravity dis- charge into tide water the sewerage problem would have been simple and the cost of the systems comparatively small. This plan had however been abandoned several years before because it was believed that the discharge of sewage upon the flats which make up the most of Quincy's shore line would cause a nuisance. A study of the tidal conditions had shown the fact that there were but two places on the Quincy coast line which could be considered as suitable points of discharge for a sewer- age system of any magnitude, one off Squantum, where the sewage from the Boston Main drainage works was already being discharged, and the other off Hough's Neck. In order to de- liver the sewage at either of these places it was necessary that. it be collected at one or more central low lying points and thence pumped to the point of discharge. The cost of main- taining a pumping station in each of the natural drainage areas would have been so large that it seemed advisable to collect the sewage from as large an area as possible at one point. To do this would make necessary the building of some deep sewers through the divides which separate the low lying drainage areas.
The Sewerage Commissioners had before them for con- sideration a plan prepared by Messrs. Whitman and Branch, Civil Engineers together with a report upon the same by Con- sulting Engineer, Albert F. Noyes. This plan showed two alternative outlets, one into the sea off Nut Island, the other into the Boston outfall sewer at Squantum. A plan for puri- fication by filtration was also submitted by John N. McClin- tock, Civial Engineer. After due consideration this latter plan
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was rejected as not being adapted to the wants of the City of Quincy. Negotiations were at once entered into with the City of Boston for the discharge of the sewage from the Quincy system into the Boston outfall sewer at Squantum. As soon as it was learned upon what terms a contract could be made with the City of Boston, a careful study was made to determine whether it would be better to accept the terms of this contract or to build an independent outlet off Nut Island: in this study the Board was aided by Consulting Engineer Noyes.
Upon the recommendation of the Board the City Council on June 15, 1896 passed an order authorizing the Mayor in be- half of the City of Quincy to execute an agreement with the City of Boston for receiving and discharging sewage from the Quincy system. Acting under this authority, Mayor Adams on November 16, 1896 signed a contract with the City of Boston under which the City of Quincy agreed to pay the sum of one thousand dollars per year for five years for the disposal of its sewage. The rate to be paid thereafter under the contract was to be determined annually in accordance with the amount of sewage contributed.
On July 6, 1896 the City Council passed an order that the City of Quincy adopt a system of sewerage and sewage dis- posal substantially in accordance with the general plans sub- mitted by the Committee on Sewers and Drains to the City Council of 1895, this being the plan made by Whitman and Branch referred to above. A week later the Council made an appropriation of five thousand dollars for plans, engineering, legal and other expenses required for the establishing of the sewerage system and on August third the Sewerage Commis- sioners employed E. W. Branch as Engineer to the Board, a position he has held throughout the progress of the work. Mr. Albert F. Noyes was retained as consulting engineer until the time of his death. Thereafter this position was held by Mr. George A. Kimball.
By the resignation of Mr. Blackmur a vacancy was caused in the Board. This vacancy was filled by the appointment of Mr. A. F. Schenkelberger, who, with the exception of the year
-
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1898, has served continuously as a member of the Board to the present time. The others who have served as members of the Board are Frederick L. Jones, Frank E. Badger, William T. Isaac and Thomas J. Lamb, the last two being now on the Board.
The general plans in accordance with which the City Council adopted the sewerage system provided for a system of intercepting sewers to collect sewage from the various villages in Quincy and convey it to a proposed pumping station to be located on the northeasterly side of Merry Mount Park from which the sewage was to be forced through an iron force main into the Boston Main Drainage Sewer at Squantum. The first work of the Engineer was to study out the details of these plans. Under the law it was necessary that the plans of the system be approved by the State Board of Health, and this approval was given Jan. 22, 1897.
Even before this time the Board knew that the Metropolitan Sewerage Commissioners were making studies for the South Metropolitan System with an outlet through Quincy, and our system was laid out with due reference to this fact. We under- stood then that the Metropolitan Sewer was to be a high-level sewer, that is, that it would be built at too high a level to re- ceive by gravity sewage from any except the higher areas of Quincy. Knowing this, our system was designed so that the sewage from the available higher levels would drain by gravity into the Metropolitan sewer when built, while the low level sewers were built with due reference to the plans of the Metro- politan Board regarding the location and the elevation of the proposed high-level sewer through Quincy, and were designed and built so that the minimum of changes would be necessary in our system when our sewage should be diverted into the Metropolitan system. We were so successful in forecasting the action of the Metropolitan Board that we did not build a foot of sewer that would not have been required if the Metropoli- tan Sewer had been in operation when we began our work. The only part of the system which will require changing is the force main. This we built by the least expensive route to a
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suitable point of discharge. This expense could not be avoided though we knew that when the Metropolitan Sewer was com- pleted the force main on this location would have to be abandoned. The needs of Quincy for sewerage were so urgent that it would not have been advisable to defer the use of the system for five years as we must have done had we waited for the Metropolitian system to be in operation before providing an outlet for our system.
As most of our sewerage must always be pumped while the balance will drain into the Metropolitan Sewer it was deter- mined that our system should be built on what is known as the separate system, that is, that the sewers be built to receive house sewage only, leaving roof and surface water to be carried away by a separate system of drains. Under a separate system sewers can properly be built of a much smaller size than where roof and surface water are admitted. In a number of cities six inches has been adopted as the minimum size for street sewers. While six inches in diameter gives sufficient capacity for the sewage from many houses, we believed there was too great danger of so small sewers becoming clogged and the Board adopted a general practice of making eight inches the smallest size of our lateral sewers. In determining the size of the sewers it was assumed to be necessary to provide for the taking of sewage at the rate of a little more than one hundred gallons per day per capita for the total population. On this basis the main brick sewers were designed to take the sewage from a population of between 90,000 and 100,000 when flowing one-half full.
According to the estimates of the State Board of Health, this population will not be reached until after the year 1940.
The lateral sewers were designed to be of sufficient capa- city to carry the sewage if the whole territory tributary to them became closely built residential districts.
The first appropriation for sewer construction was approved April 29, 1897-and the Board immediately began work on the force main, bought land north of Merrymount Park for a pump- ing station, and advertised for bids for building the pumping sta-
210
tion foundations and the main intercepting sewer from the pump- ing station southerly.
Store House
The Board anticipated difficulty in handling the large quantity of pipe and other freight which would be used, with the existing freight facilities which at that time were very poor. A study was made of the conditions for the whole length of the railroad in the city and it was decided, if possible, to have a spur track built between Wollaston and Quincy and a storehouse built for the use of the city during the period of sewer construc- tion. We succeeded in having a track laid and operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company at a point near Warren avenue in Ward Five, rented several lots of land from Henry H. Faxon and built a cheap storehouse. This proved of great advantage in the prosecution of the work and its use was continued until the completion of the main sewers in Wollaston and Atlantic. During all this time, this was the most central location for the work which was being carried on. At the end of the season of 1902 this location was abandoned and the storehouse was rebuilt upon land owned by the city and used by the Water Department at South Quincy. This new location was more convenient for the carrying on of construction in Wards Two and Four where most of the work has been done during the past two years.
Pumping Station
The contract for building the foundations of the pumping station and chimney was awarded to the lowest bidder, John Cashman of Quincy. The station was located on the marsh where there was a depth of from six to thirteen feet of peat underlaid with fine sand.
The nature of the soil and depth of the peat made the work expensive. The foundations were of rough granite laid in cement mortar and were finished in the early autumn of 1897
.
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The foundations and the general plans of the pumping station were designed by our engineers. It was thought advisable by the Board to employ an architect to design the station building and Joseph E. Chandler was employed as architect. The con- tract for building the pumping station and chimney was let to Thomas H, Kingston, the lowest bidder, Oct. 25, 1897. The station and chimney were built of brick and were completed early in 1898. Bids for pumping machinery were received Jan. 13, 1898 and the contract was awarded to the Deane Steam Pump Company of Holyoke. The plant consists of two hor- izontal tubular boilers 60 inches in diameter and two horizontal compound condensing piston pumping engines, one with a capacity of 5,000,000 and the other 3,000,000 gallons in twenty- four hours. The pumping station was put in operation May 8, 1899, and both station and machinery have proved their adap- tation to the work for which they were designed.
All the grading of the grounds about the pumping station and of the road leading from the station to Fenno street, was done by day labor by the city.
Force Main
The force main is a 24-inch cast iron pipe, 175 pounds per foot, from the pumping station to the Boston Main Drainage Outfall sewer at Squantum, a distance of 3.36 miles. The city was fortunate in buying the pipe at a time when the price of iron was very low. The price paid for the straight pipe being $18.12 per ton of 2,000 pounds delivered in Quincy. The pipe was bought from the lowest bidder, M. J. Drummond & Company of New York. Lead was bought from the American Metal Com- pany at the rate of 3.3 ceuts per pound. The pipe was laid carefully to line and grade with blow-off valves at its lowest points. The work was done by day labor with M. E. Shea and . W. D. Burns as foremen.
Main Sewers
Two egg-shaped brick intercepting sewers converge at the
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pumping station, one 30 inches by 45 inches in diameter lead- ing southerly and designed to take the sewage from Wards one, two, three and four, and the southerly slope of Wollaston Hill in Ward five ; and the other 24 inches by 36 inches in size to take the sewage from the remainder of Ward five and Ward six. These sewers leave the pumping station at a grade 1.3 feet below the city base which is approximately mean low tide and are built at an inclination of about one foot per thousand. This low level and flat grade were necessary in order to collect the sewage from the low lying lands at Atlantic, Norfolk Downs and Quincy Point at a single collecting point.
The Board considered the building of these main sewers to be a work of too great magnitude to be undertaken by day labor and advertised for proposals to build the first section ex- tending from the pumping station to a point near Coddington street. Bids were received from thirteen contractors ranging from $22,500 to $45,036. The contract was awarded to Charles G. Craib, the lowest bidder, and was completed in the early spring of 1898. A large amount of ground water was en- countered in this section. This with quick sand, which was found in two or three places, made the work difficult and ex- pensive. On this section the Board adopted a policy which it has continued throughout the work of buying all the stock to be used in sewer construction and furnishing it to the con- tractor. In buying the stock local dealers have always been given the preference.
By early autumn, 1897, the work on the pumping station, force main and first section of the main sewer had made such progress that it was decided to start on the remainder of the brick sewers and bids were received in October for two sec- tions, one for a 24-inch by 36-inch brick sewer from near Cod- dington street to Bigelow street and a 24-inch pipe sewer through Bigelow street to Elm street, and the other for a 24- inch by 36-inch sewer from the pumping station to a point in Hancock street opposite Woodbine street. These two sections were each let to the lowest bidder, the first to J. H. McKnight, and the second to John Sheehan & Company. Mr. McKnight's
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contract was nearly completed before the end of the year. The work had to be suspended, however, in December on account of the severity of the weather and the contract was completed in the early spring of the following year.
The work on Sheehan's contract, which was known as sec- i tion 3, was carried on throughout the winter and was com- pleted about September 29, 1898. There were numerous delays on this contract, the most serious of which was occasioned by the settlement of the earth about the sewer trench, causing a break in the water pipe. The trench was flooded and it was some time before the damage was repaired so that the work could go on as before. After the completion of the work on this sec- tion the contractor presented a bill for the work done. The bill was made up of the engineer's final estimate with additional items on account of claims for damages and extra work and amounted to $35,602.22 with credits of payments amounting to $20,521.81, leaving a balance due of $15,080.41.
The value of the work done according to the engineer's final estimate was $24,281.23. Payments aggregating $20,521.81 had been made on account, leaving a balance due of $3,759.43. There were certain offsets claimed by the city. The Board was unable to agree with the contractor upon terms of settle- ment and the matter was referred to the court. An auditor's decision was rendered in 1901 under which the amount due un- der the contract was declared to be $2,137.96. The contractor refused to abide by the decision of the auditor, thus making a jury trial necessary. The Board did all in its power to hasten a settlement, but the case did not come up for trial till late in January, 1905. The trial was a long one, occupying nearly three weeks. The city contended that under Mr. Sheehan's contract most of the items which he had sued upon were cov- ered by his contract bid and he could not recover upon the same. There were long discussions as to the law relating to the subject between counsel and the court. In order to save the city's rights on questions of law, Mr. Blackmur, who appeared for the city, asked the court to interrogate the jury as to how they found on certain classes of items set forth in plaintiff's declaration.
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Upon the rendering of the verdict, which amounted to $8,621.51, Mr. Blackmur asked that the jury return their find- ing upon all the items submitted, whereupon the foreman of the jury handed to the court a paper containing the figures of the jury showing how they arrived at their verdict. Mr. Black- mur took the paper and upon analyzing the same, discovered that the jury had made obvious errors in computation, which made a difference of about $3,000 in the verdict, so that the ver- dict should have been $5,649.46.
The matter was immediately called to the court's attention, but, as the jury had been dismissed, nothing could be done to rectify it. A motion for a new trial was filed at once and the court will be asked to either set aside the verdict or reduce the same. There were several items upon which the jury made a compromise in favor of the plaintiff, upon which the defendant claims, under the ruling of the court, there was no evidence whatever to have gone to the jury, and the question whether or not the verdict may not be still further reduced will be argued before the court. If the city's contention is upheld the verdict will be reduced to about $4,000 ; an amount but little in excess of the engineer's final estimate. We have had contracts aggre- gating more than $300,000 for labor and stock, with more than twenty different contractors. This is the only suit that has been brought against the city on any of these contracts. Ami- cable settlements have been made with all other contractors.
Copeland Street Sewer
Early in 1897 the attention of the Board was called to the fact that Copeland street from Granite street to the Willard school was to be paved that year. A conference with the Com- missioner of Public Works resulted in the determination to build the sewer in Copeland street before the paving was done. A contract for this work was made with T. H. & G. M. Bryne. One of the conditions of this contract was that only citizens of Quincy were to be employed by the contractor as laborers. This clause caused much friction between the contractor and
215
the city, the contractor claiming that he was unable to procure citizens capable of doing the work and the citizens employed claiming that they were discharged without cause to make places for foreign laborers. As a result of this experience the Board determined that it would be advisable thereafter to do the less dif- ficult work by day labor employing citizens thereon and to do the more difficult work, requiring a special plant, by contract. This policy was followed during the following year when con- tracts for building sewers were let to the A. W. Bryne Con- struction Company and to Long & Little, and nearly four miles of sewers were built by day labor. The contracts awarded to Long & Little were for sewers principally in Wards one and three, and those awarded to the A. W. Bryne Construction Company were for sewers in Ward five. The contract prices for this year, considering the character of the work, were very low as was also the price for sewer pipe.
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