Documentary History of American Water-works

Lambertville

Lambertville, New Jersey

Lambertville was incorporated as a town in 1849 and as a city in 1872.

The Lambertville Water Company was incorporated in 1855 by Thomas B. Carr, Ingham Coryell, William McCready, Burroughs Hunt, Ashbel Welch, Amos Moore, Alexander Coryell, James D. Stryker, and Samuel Lilly "to supply the town of Lambrtville with good and wholesome water."

An 1868 law extended the time for formation of the company and named new incorporators: Ashbel Welch, William McCready, Samuel Lilly, William Cowin, William V. Cooley, Charles A. Skillman, Gervas Ely, Joseph Smith and Charles C. Holcombe.

The Lambertville Water Company was organized on July 21, 1877, probably under the 1876 general law but it could have been under the original charter. The company built a gravity system that began service in November, 1878. At some point the company came under the control of the General Waterworks Corporation, which was formed in 1928. This company merged with United Water Resources in 1994, which was bought by Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux in 1999.

Water service is provided by SUEZ Water New Jersey from their Swan Creek Reservoir. Lambertville was supplied with water by the Delaware River Basin Commission for some time. The system can also receive water from the Delaware and Raritan Canal, which also receives up to 100 MGD of water from that commission to serve communities in northern New Jersey.

References
1855 An act to incorporate the Lambertville Water Company. March 15, 1855.

1868 An act for the relief of the Lambertville Water Company. April 2, 1868.

1870 Supplement to an act entitled, "An Act to incorporate the Lambertville Water Company," approved March fifteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-five. March 16, 1870.

1881 History of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties, New Jersey
Page 286: LAMBERTVILLE WATER COMPANY.
The Lambertville Water Company was organized July 21, 1877. The water-right of a pond on Swan’s Creek and two and eight-tenths acres were bought of A. Smith Wilson. The reservoir contains, when full, 1,800,000 gallons of water. The daily flow of the creek into the reservoir has been carefully estimated at 400,000 gallons daily for nine months of the year, and 70,000 gallons daily for three months.
The water-shed from which the water is collected is the “trap-dike” known as “Goat Hill,” and has an area of 1000 acres, and, from a low estimate of the amount of rain-fall during the year that could be made available by impounding all the water, it would reach the enormous quantity of 326,700,000 gallons.

1881 Lambertville, N.J. from Engineering News 8:328 (August 31, 1881)

1882 Lambertville, from "The Water-Supply of Certain Cities and Towns of the United States," by Walter G. Elliot, C. E., Ph. D.

1888 "Lambertville," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 1.

1890 "Lambertville," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 2.

1891 "Lambertville," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 3.

1896 "Sand Filter Beds for the Water-Works of Lambertville, N.J.", by Churchill Hungerford, Engineering News 36:4-5 (July 2, 1896)

1896 "Credit for Lambertville Filter Bed Design," Engineering News 36:248 (October 15, 1896)

1897 "Lambertville," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 4.

1981 "Drought Emergency," Asbury Park Press, January 7, 1981, Page 4.
A pipeline was installed Friday from the Delaware and Raritan Canal to the Lambertville Water Co. reservoirs near Route 518 in West Amwell township, but it froze and broke Sunday night.

1989 "Drought: No danger yet," The Courier-News (Bridgewater, New Jersey), March 19, 1989, Page 2.
The commission also supplies water to the Lambertville Water Co.

2013 "Water," In the Beacon Light: Lambertville, NJ 1860 to 1900, by Sharon Bisaha