| Introduction | Historical Background | Chronology | Geography | Biography | Technology | Ownership and Financing | General Bibliography |
| Middle Atlantic States | New York | Malone |
The Village of Malone was settled around 1765.
The Malone Aqueduct Association was chartered in 1810 by Appleton Foot, George F. Harrison, Warren Powers, and apparently installed a system as old pipe logs were discovered some time later on village streets.
The Malone Water Works Company was chartered in 1857 by Samuel C. Wead, Benjamin Raymond, Hiram H. Thompson, Edwin L. Meigs, Ebenezer Man, Calvin Skinner, William A. Wheeler, Obadiah T. Hosford, William King, Reuben S. Brown, Daniel Brown, William G. Dickinson, Hiram Horton, John A. Fuller, Andrew W. Ferguson, Nathan Knapp, Abraham C. Lewis, Howard E. King, and William Wallace King. This company constructed a system using cement-lined wrought-iron pipe that was expanded several times but never fully meet the needs of the residents.
The Village of Malone bought the company in 1906 for $225,000 and currently provides water in the community.
References
1810 An act incorporating the Malone Aqueduct
Association. March 19, 1810.
1857 An act to incorporate the Malone Water Works Company, March 23, 1857
1882 Malone, from Engineering News 9:58 (February 18, 1882)
1882 Malone, from "The Water-Supply of Certain Cities and Towns of the United States," by Walter G. Elliot, C. E., Ph. D.
1888 "Malone," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 1.
1890 In Re Malone Water-Works Co., 15 N.Y.S. 649, May 1, 1890, New York Supreme Court
1890 "Malone," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 2.
1891 "Malone," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 3.
1897 "Malone," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 4.
1907 In the matter of the application of Malone village, Franklin county, New York, for approval of its maps and profiles of its new source of water supply, from Annual Report of the State Water Supply Commission of New York, Issue 2.
1908 In the matter of the application of Malone village, in the County of Franklin, in said State of New York, for approval of its maps and profiles of an additional source of water supply, from Annual Report of the State Water Supply Commission of New York, Issue 4, Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Volume 8, 1909
1918 Historical
Sketches of Franklin County and Its Several Towns: With Many Short
Biographies, by Frederick Joel Seaver
Page 419: p 419
As early as 1810 the Malone Aqueduct Association was incorporated by act
of the Legislature to supply the village of Malone with wholesome water by
means of aqueducts. Appleton Foote, George F. Harison and Warren Powers
were named in the act to receive subscriptions for stock, which might be
issued in ten dollar shares to the aggregate amount of fifteen thousand
dollars. The right to condemn lands and water was conferred, and it was
provided that dividends of not to exceed fourteen per cent, might be paid
on the stock, while all earnings in excess of that percentage were to be
paid to the treasurer of the village, for application to the cost of
employing a night watch. Inasmuch as there was then no village, nor any
treasurer, the latter provision seems absurd, though indicative of a
prevalent desire to have public order conserved; and delve though you
should deeper than the ditches were excavated, you will find no record of
what the association did, nor how it throve or languished. It is a fact,
however, that something like a third of a century ago, during the progress
of work on our present water system, pipe logs were found on Water and
Catherine streets, no memory of the laying or use of which even the oldest
inhabitant recalled, and it was understood that similar pipes were laid on
Webster and Alain streets. There was, too, in the long ago a pipe line
from the Hosford Spring, east of the fair grounds, across the Flat, but
whether it belonged to the 1810 system is not known. The source of supply
for the Foote-Harison-Powers system was a spring in the then Parmelee
sugar bush, which was east by south from the Webster street cemetery. Such
an enterprise in such a time is certainly remarkable.
Page 455: WATER WORKS
Until 1857 the village inhabitants were wholly dependent for their water
supply upon the river, cisterns, wells and springs. Baptiste Monteau had
a hogshead on a truck in which he conveyed water to families from
the river, and it was customary for many families to fetch water in
pails from springs or their neighbors' wells (both of which were more
numerous then than now) for drinking uses. In 1857 the Malone Water-Works
Company was incorporated, and purchased a spring, flowing a hundred
thousand gallons a day, south of the village, as a source of supply. Mains
which were supposed at the time to be abundantly large, but which proved
to be wretchedly insufficient, were laid along ,the principal streets, and
it was thought that provision had been made to cover all domestic and fire
needs of the village "for generations to come;" but less than twenty years
had elapsed when clamor for more water began to be insistent, and after a
time another spring near by, and then still another, to the east, and even
the Branch stream, were added one after another to the system. Still the
supply was inadequate, and the head for fire purposes miserably
insufficient. In 1888 the water company was reorganized, with a
considerable increase of capital, the Horse brook, seven miles south in
the Adirondack foothills, and fed altogether by springs, became the
principal source of supply, with mains of a capacity to deliver a million
gallons a day at the reservoir, which was located on the Pinnacle, near
the village, at an elevation that affords a pressure of ninety pounds in
the business center. Though there is no finer system anywhere, nor any
purer water, which, however, would be preferable if it were less "hard,"
there is still complaint at times that the quantity is insufficient. The
village acquired the works by purchase at a cost of $225,000 in 1906, and
the revenue from rentals is enough to meet interest obligations and to
cover payment of bonds as they come due, as well as to cover expenditures
for maintenance and extensions. The village has no other indebtedness
except about $75,000 for brick paving.
© 2015 Morris A. Pierce