USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916 > Part 11
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The taxpayers were somewhat dismayed on January seventh,
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1909, when water percolating under the foundations of this dam caused a "washout". The structure was not carried away, and the damage was finally repaired without financial loss to the city.
Public anxiety regarding the water supply, however, was caused with more reason by the local effects of two years in suc- cession, 1908 and 1909, of unusual drought. The supply in the reservoirs was nearly exhausted. In 1908, it was necessary to pump from Ashley Lake, where the original bowl was lower than the outfall, and to divert temporarily Roaring Brook into the Mill Brook supply, while in 1909 the emergency induced the Massachusetts board of health to consent to the pumping of water from Onota Lake into the mains. The growing city seems to have been in a situation only a little short of precarious; and William H. MacInnis, the mayor in 1910, seems accurately to have voiced public sentiment when he declared that the provision of water supply was then the "one great and monumental duty" of his municipal administration. It is right to add that this duty was performed with judicious liberality, and that the out- come of the city's long standing anxieties in this matter was the wise and energetic accomplishment of the most important and considerable single public work which Pittsfield had achieved.
The city council of 1910 promptly passed, at the request of the mayor, an order authorizing him to appoint a committee of citizens, to whom should be entrusted the comprehensive task of increasing the permanent water supply; and Mayor MacInnis, on January twenty-ninth, 1910, accordingly appointed William H. Swift, Edward A. Jones, Daniel England, Arthur H. Rice, and James W. Hull. William H. Swift was named as chairman. Fred T. Francis acted as secretary. The committee lost no time. In March it submitted a preliminary report to the city council advising the construction of a large storage reservoir on October Mountain. The city council adopted the report.
The location of this proposed reservoir, at the headwaters of Mill Brook in the township of Washington, had been recom- mended to the council of 1909 by Arthur B. Farnham, then the engineering agent of the board of public works, and the citizens' committee of 1910 greatly amplified Mr. Farnham's tentative
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suggestion. With him as an advisory and executive assistant, the members of the committee consulted experts, among whom were Hiram A. Miller of Boston, Prof. William H. Burr of New York, and Prof. W. O. Crosby of Boston. In August, 1910, the committee's studious labor resulted in the presentation to the city council of a second and more elaborate report, which en- larged substantially the scope of the former design. It advocated the interception of five of the tributary waters of Roaring Brook and their diversion by conduit and open channel into Mill Brook, the building across the Mill Brook gorge on October Mountain of a masonry and concrete dam, about 900 feet long, 100 feet high, and with a maximum thickness of 68 feet, and the preparation behind it of a storage reservoir to have a capacity of 440,000,000 gallons and a catchment area of about four square miles. In the committee's judgment, the execution of this scheme would double the existing water supply.
Adverse criticism mildly excited itself. Not a few public- spirited citizens were startled by the probable cost of the enter- prise, which was informally estimated to be in the neighborhood of $750,000, inclusive of the expenditure for land and water rights, for the reconstruction of a mile of highway, and for pipe lines. It was honestly apprehended by some people that so large a reservoir on the mountainside could never be filled. Furthermore, with the natural reservoirs of Richmond Pond, of Onota, or of Pontoosuc Lake, nearer at hand, why spend so much money to build an artificial reservoir five miles from the Park?
The committee, however, was fortified by solid argument, and its conclusions had been reached with exceptional fore- thought. Engineers of high reputation, and the state board of health as well, had approved the details of the plan; and it was obvious that the watershed of the proposed reservoir could be guarded against pollution more readily and economically than could that of a lake nearer the expanding residential district. Finally, a quarry not far from the site of the proposed dam was owned by the city, from which it was believed stone could be taken suitable in quality and quantity.
The design was affirmed by the municipal government, and by it, on November seventh, 1910, the committee was authorized
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to execute the project. In the meantime, the mayor had pro- curcd authority for the city to assume the bonded indebtedness immediately necessary. The successful bidders for the contract of building the dam were Winston and Company of New York, who began work in January of 1911. The working plans re- quired among other tasks the clearing of forty-six acres of land, the excavation of 94,000 cubic yards of earth and rock, and the construction of 47,000 cubic yards of masonry. Universal ac- ceptance was promptly and willingly given to the popular sug- gestion that the new reservoir should bear the name of Arthur B. Farnham, the engineer who had suggested its site and had as- sisted in planning its details.
Death removed one member of the committee, James W. Hull, on February second, 1911; the resulting vacancy remained unfilled.
The committee had engaged Hiram A. Miller of Boston to serve as its chief engineer of construction, and had made an ar- rangement with the board of public works, whereby its clerical business, as well as much of its engineering labor, was done in the office of the board. The progress of the contractors seems to have been watched by the committee with unusual vigilance. The most important metal work for the dam and conduits was made "expressly for the city under inspection at the place of manufacture", according to the committee's report. "All the cement used was inspected at the mill and a sample from each carload was tested after it arrived at the New Lenox railroad station. The mixing of the concrete, the masonry work on the dam, the work on the conduits, and in fact all the work of the contractors was done under constant and efficient supervision. The sanitary condition of the camps was watched, the camps be- ing visited regularly by a physician employed by the city. No deaths occurred as the result of lack of care or bad conditions in the camps or elsewhere on the work, and there was no loss of life from accident. The water supply for the reservoir was re- peatedly examined by the State Board of Health, and approved, and the committee had an independent bacteriological examina- tion made of the water before turning over the reservoir to the Board of Public Works." The daily measuring, laying out, and
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recording the work of the contractors gave constant employment to the committee's assistant engineers, for whom was equipped a boarding house and office near the reservoir. The conscientious care, in short, bestowed upon the undertaking was proportionate to its great importance to the public.
The Farnham dam and reservoir were completed on Novem- ber twenty-second, 1912. During the following year, this addi- tion to the water system was proved to be amply successful, and the actual impoundage of water in all of the city's reservoirs amounted approximately to 800,000,000 gallons according to the annual report of the board of public works in 1913. A statement of the special committee, made on November first, 1913, showed that the cost of the additional waterworks had been $781,349.78, of which about one-third was cost of pipe lines. Public opinion applauded the committee, and with reason; for through the effi- cient labor of its members the city's water supply had been so increased that the maximum quantity of water in storage, with the run-off from the brooks, would yield an average, even in a series of dry years, of 5,500,000 gallons a day.
The inception, then, of three municipal utilities of conse- quence-namely, a sewer system, a system of paved streets, and an increased water supply-was accomplished in Pittsfield, be- tween 1891 and 1912, not by the usual agencies of a city govern- ment but by special boards or commissions, erected each for a specific purpose. This purpose having been fulfilled, the board of public works assumed, or re-assumed, the control of the public properties involved, and the duty of maintaining them on a scale suitable to the public needs.
The burden shouldered by many of the boards of public works, during the first quarter-century of the city's existence, was unusually heavy. To meet with justice the demands of a growing community by means of annual appropriations allowed from often overstrained municipal funds, required pertinacity ; and the recorded figures indicate continuous effort during this period. The humble item of street hydrants, for example, is significant, for of these there were ninety-four in 1891, and 573 in 1915. In 1891 there were 256 electric street lights; in 1915 there were 1,563. Between 1901 and 1915 the total length of concrete
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sidewalks increased from twenty-four to forty-two miles, that of surface water drains from five to fourteen miles, and that of water mains from sixty-four to one hundred and twelve miles, while in the same brief period the number of crosswalks rose from 356 to 634. Only a part of the activities of the boards may be in- ferred from these figures. Pittsfield's growth caused the fre- quent grading and location of new streets; and the rebuilding of bridges, made essential by heavier traffic and changed methods of conveyance, was at the same time an unusual duty. In 1905, the first concrete bridge in Pittsfield was built across the Housa- tonic at West Street, and its then novel mode of construction, as well as its grace of lines, attracted much notice.
The city's board of public works of three members was chosen, according to the original charter, by the city council. The men who held this office were: Edward D. Jones (1891- 1899), Joseph H. Daly (1891-1895), Hiram B. Wellington (1891), Hezekiah S. Russell (1892-1894), John M. Lee (1895), John H. Manning (1896-1899), James L. Bacon (1896-1903), Franklin A. Smith (1900-1903), George W. Bailey (1900-1903), Jeremiah M. Linnehan (1904-1911), Charles K. Ferry (1904-1906), Frank Howard (1904-1911), Chester E. Gleason (1907-1911), and Jay P. Barnes (1912-1914). Maurice J. Madden, Patrick J. Flynn, and Eugene H. Robbins constituted the board in 1915, of whom Messrs. Madden and Flynn first served in 1912, and Mr. Robbins in 1915.
One of the minor tasks of the board was the adaptation of the town building, erected on Park Square in 1832, to the re- quirements of a city hall. Brick additions have been built on its north side; but its southern exterior has remained practically unchanged for more than eighty years.
The city inherited from the town three tracts of land dedi- cated to public use as parks-the Common on First Street, Bur- bank Park at Onota Lake, and the Park at the meeting point of the four main streets; and to these should be added the land on South Street, left vacant in 1895 by the burning of the high school. The development of this nucleus of a park system, in charge of the city council, does not appear for several years to have excited much popular interest. In 1905, however, the
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Common was partly equipped as a playground and provided with walks, benches, and shade trees, and thereto was moved a band stand from a triangular plot which until then it occupied in front of the Athenaeum. In 1906, the city purchased seventy- six acres next northerly of the land which it already owned on the shore of Onota Lake, raising its holdings there to about 190 acres. In 1910, the city bought a parcel of land south of its former high school site, on South Street, and graded the entire area of three acres for use as a small common.
Kelton B. Miller, in 1910, conveyed to the city a tract of land at Springside, for which the consideration named in the deed was "the affection I bear to the City of Pittsfield". The condi- tions of the conveyance were that the city should acquire certain land adjacent to this tract and should maintain forever and reasonably improve the whole for the enjoyment of the public. By the city these conditions were gratefully accepted, so that Pittsfield became the owner of the pleasant ten acres of land then known as Abbot Park, and so named in honor of Rev. Charles E. Abbot, who conducted a boys' school nearby from 1856 to 1866. Within a few years, Mr. Miller added substantial- ly to his original gift. The first name of the park seems soon to have slipped into disuse, and the title "Springside Park" to have been officially substituted for it.
In 1913 the mayor appointed a park commission of five mem- bers, who chose Fred T. Francis as chairman, and to whom were intrusted the maintenance and development of Pittsfield's sys- tem of parks; and in that year the commission began proceed- ings which soon resulted in the acquirement for the city of ten acres of woodland on the south shore of Pontoosuc Lake. Va- rious small plots at the intersections of streets were by the com- mission protected and in appearance improved.
Of much more vital importance was the maintenance of the city's public playgrounds, which the commission assumed in conjunction with a Park and Playground Association of private citizens. As has been heretofore mentioned, the provision of a system of public playgrounds was initiated by this association in 1911. Pittsfield was among the first cities in the Commonwealth to accept by vote a statutory referendum authorizing municipal
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appropriations for playground purposes. The city's annual appropriation, after 1912, was nearly doubled by private sub- scription and other agencies. The principal playgrounds cs- tablished, equipped with apparatus, and supervised by pro- fessional directors, were on Columbus Avenue (the "William Pitt Playground"), at Springside, Russell's, and Pontoosuc; and the Common became a playground legally when the association was organized.
The Balance Rock trust, organized by Kelton B. Miller in 1910, had for its object "to preserve Balance Rock and the land in connection therewith as a public park, as a place for the study of and experiments in forestry, and as a resort for sightseers and students of nature, and for other public purposes." Twenty-six public-spirited citizens of Pittsfield contributed to the trust fund, whereby was purchased the picturesque, wooded tract of land in Lanesborough, upon which the curious bowlder, known of old as "Rolling Rock," is to be seen. The trustees, by unani- mous consent of the contributors, were directed in 1916 to convey the property to the city, and it thus became a part of the city's park system.
Points of noteworthy historical interest seem not to be pre- sented by the conduct of some other departments of Pittsfield's municipal administration, however important, such as those di- rected by the boards of assessors, the overseers of the poor, the boards of health, the license commissioners, and the city solici- tors. The first city solicitor, in 1891 was Walter F. Hawkins, and the other lawyers who served the city in that capacity during its first quarter-century were John F. Noxon, John C. Crosby, Milton B. Warner, James Fallon, and John J. Whittlesey. The city clerks have been Kelton B. Miller, Edward Cain, Edward C. Hill, J. Ward Lewis, Ernest Johnson, John Barker, Alfred C. Daniels and Norman C. Hull.
While the charter did not allow to the mayor direct power in the physical improvement of the city, nevertheless he was often able to exert a potent influence in these matters of public welfare. Thus the mayor, although charged by law primarily with execu- tive duties, was at times in a position to assume, with benefit to the city, some other functions, of which not the least important
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was that of an informative agent for the voters, or, it may almost be said, that of a municipal watchman.
In the twenty-five years from 1891 to 1916, thirteen men held the office of mayor of Pittsfield, elected annually. Their names and years of service were: Charles E. Hibbard (1891), Jabez L. Peck (1892 and 1893), John C. Crosby (1894 and 1895), Walter F. Hawkins (1896 and 1897), William W. Whiting (1898 and 1899), Hezekiah S. Russell (1900 and 1901), Daniel England (1902), Harry D. Sisson (1903 and 1904), Allen H. Bagg (1905, 1906, and 1907), William H. MacInnis (1908, 1909, and 1910), Kelton B. Miller (1911 and 1912), Patrick J. Moore (1913 and 1914), and George W. Faulkner (1915). Mr. Faulkner was re- elected in 1915. The popular choice for mayor was usually ex- pressed by a good-sized majority, although at the city election in 1910 the office for 1911 was awarded by a preponderance of only twelve votes. An alignment according to national political parties shows that the Republican mayoralty candidate was fourteen times successful at the polls and the Democratic, eleven.
Problems of municipal finance and economy offered them- selves to the mayors of Pittsfield during these years with an insistence probably exceptional among New England cities; and they were called upon to scrutinize, and, so far as they could do so under the charter, to influence the action of the city council, in situations also somewhat exceptional, because of the conditions which were created properly by the local activities of powerful absentee corporations, and which were novel in the city's experience. The annual salary attached to the office was one thousand dollars. With one or two exceptions, the thirteen mayors mentioned were active business men or lawyers in prac- tice, and were not permitted by their personal circumstances to devote themselves exclusively to public duties.
The financial development of Pittsfield's municipal affairs, with which the mayors were thus identified, may be inferred, in part at least, from the varying state of the public indebtedness. In 1891, the town and fire district indebtedness, less the sinking fund, was $332,225.89, which was assumed by the new city on the day of its birth. On January first, 1916, the debt of the city was $2,847,577.50.
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Administrators of local government in Pittsfield were not ad- dicted to the habit either of lecturing the public or of complain- ing of their difficultics. Nevertheless, their reports reiterate a cer- tain admonition so often that it is worthy of remark, not because the municipal imprudence which it was designed to correct is at all uncommon, but because Pittsfield's town and city officials warned the community against it with uncommon persistence. In their public recommendations, no general policy has been re- prehended so constantly as has been that which delays annual expenditure for permanent improvements until, under pressure of necessity, a large financial outlay must be made in a brief period. Thus the school committee of 1879, when land for several new schoolhouses was an immediate need, admitted the uneconomic failure of the town to provide school sites one or two at a time; and the committee's report added: "Well will it be for our reputation and our children's purses, if accusations of a similar lack of foresight lie not as truly against this generation". Thus eighteen years later, the mayor of 1897 said in his inaugural address: "We shall not be justified in seeking for ourselves a fleeting reputation for economy at the expense of coming years"; and thus the mayor of 1903, while discussing the cost of street paving, said to the members of the city government: "Had the foresight and wisdom of the honorable gentlemen who have pre- ceded me been favorably acted upon at the time, Pittsfield would today be enjoying the fruits of her public spirit, and the question of paving, with the consequent debt, would have been a thing of the past".
Instances of similar public counsel abound; and if Pittsfield's municipal resources were sometimes overweighted temporarily because of the community's past failure to look ahead, such a failure seems seldom to have been chargeable to lack of watchful- ness on the part of the chief officials of town and city.
The annals of Pittsfield before the year 1916 record the deaths of three men among the thirteen whom the city called to the position of its chief magistrate. Jabez L. Peck, mayor in 1892 and 1893, died April fifth, 1895. He was born in Pittsfield, De- cember seventh, 1826. His father, Captain Jabez Peck, came to Pittsfield from Lenox in 1816. In 1864, Jabez L. Peck became
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the sole owner of a manufactory of cotton warp on Onota Brook, having purchased the interests therein of his father and of his uncle. In the same year he built a brick mill, in partnership with J. P. Kilbourn, and in 1868 he bought out his partner and utilized the upper mill for the manufacture of flannels. The prosperity of both of these enterprises was long continued. In 1890, the Peck Manufacturing Company was incorporated, of which Mr. Peck remained president until his death. He was president also of the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and a director of the Agricultural Bank, of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, and of the Berkshire County Savings Bank.
The responsibilities of successful business and of financial trust by no means overstrained Mr. Peck's singular energy. It found other outlets, in the performance, for example, of duties so oddly divergent as those of a Sunday school superintendent and of the chief engineer of Pittsfield's volunteer fire department. He was a deacon, and a conscientious, important officer, of the First Church, and his individual effort was for many years in- valuable to the mission and Sunday school from which the Pil- grim Memorial Church was developed. From holding public office he was disinclined; but when he assumed it, he was therein diligent and masterful, as he was in all his undertakings. "Su- perfluous force in him", said truthfully his friend and pastor, "seemed always struggling to expend itself. He walked-when he walked-as if driven onward by power he could not with- stand. When he rode, he rode as if demons of speed were after him. His mental movements were as quick and strong."
Such precipitate personal force in a community may be un- productive, unless controlled; but Mr. Peck's Gallic impetuosity was so governed by his Yankee common sense that the Pittsfield of his generation gained by it. An efficient and frequent helper of what was good, he wanted to have his own way, but he was accessible, neighborly, catholic; no man in Pittsfield was more generally called by his nickname. For the opinion which people might have of him, he seemed to care little. Like many Pitts- field manufacturers of his day, he had learned in business to stand on his own feet, and his attitude anywhere was similarly independent. He formed his own judgments; they satisfied
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him; and he both expressed them and sought their fulfillment with swift and self-confident zeal.
Mr. Peck represented his ward as alderman in Pittsfield's first city council, and immediately thereafter he was twice elected mayor. The municipal period in which he served was one of experiment. It was fortunate for the new form of government on trial at this time that it possessed in Mr. Peck a leader whose reliability for accomplishment had already been tested in his birthplace for forty years, whose strength of character was so familiar to his fellow citizens, and whose personality was so picturesque and compelling.
William W. Whiting was mayor in 1898 and 1899. He was born at Bath, New York, on May seventh, 1847, and came in 1866 to Pittsfield, where he spent the rest of his life in the business of a wholesale dealer in writing paper. Under the old town government he was a selectman in 1885, 1886, and 1887, and he was otherwise conspicuous in public affairs as a favorite moderator at town and fire district meetings, and as an excep- tionally capable collector of taxes. He was fond in those days of a political clash; on the floor of the town hall or at a stormy village caucus, he could lead tumultuous followers with effect and courage; and his performance of official duty was charac- terized by the same sort of dogged vigor.
Mr. Whiting's national pride was spirited. His tenure of the mayoralty included the exciting period of our war with Spain, and he was eager and effectively watchful that Pittsfield should fail at no point in patriotism and the display of it. The good name of the city was constantly dear to him. Other mayors may have brought to the office more initiative force and mental facility, but it is apparent that his enthusiasm and simple resolve to serve the city with the utmost of his skill and strength were of no small worth to the community. His sense of duty was tragically exemplified by the circumstances of his death, for, after bearing a heavy burden of ill health during many months of official labor, he was suddenly prostrated at his desk in the city hall, while presiding over a meeting; and he died two hours afterward, on August seventh, 1899.
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