Water for Newark
The safety of tap water is something we take for granted, but in the old days of Newark, NJ taking a drink was something one did at his or her own risk.
According to the website, NewarkHistory.com, while Newark once had unlimited good water from the Passaic River, by the Civil War, Newark’s water was anything but the clear liquid it had once been.
By the 1880’s even well water was becoming infested with bacteria, tannic acid, and unnamable bad tastes. The rich could not escape from the sickening waters, and Newark’s breweries were threatening to go to a place with better water.
In 1879 an engineering firm recommended that Newark acquire water from the watershed of the Pequannock River in Morris, Sussex, and Passaic counties, New Jersey.
In 1888 a private group called the East Jersey Water Company was contracted to provide the City of Newark with up to 27 million gallons of clean, Pequannock water a year for $6,000,000. With that $6,000,000, the East Jersey Water Company would build three dams and lay 28 miles of 4' steel pipe from the watershed to Newark.
By 1892 everyone in Newark was drinking pristine, cold water from the Passaic highlands. And typhoid fever deaths dropped by 70 percent.
Here's the story, as published in the New York Times (October 28, 1889), with illustrations by E.J. Meeker (Harper's Weekly, August 29th, 1891).
“The heart of the Pequannock valley is soon to be covered by a vast, artificial lake, the waters of which are to be held in check by a dam at Oak Ridge. This lake will be one of three storage reservoirs from which Newark’s water supply is to come. Of the three it will be the largest. The waters of the Oak Ridge reservoir will need a giant wall of masonry to prevent their sweeping destruction through the narrow mountain passes and the pleasant winding Pequannock River."
"The East Jersey Water Company has been quietly at work for two years, buying lakes, ponds and water rights along the Pequannock Valley, and has been expending vast sums in such purchases. The company paid $44,000 for the Macopin Lake (now called Echo Lake). These and other mountain lakes are to be used in furnishing Newark with its water supply."
Great Falls of the Passaic