History of The Water Works-This Day In Norwood History-August 20, 1904

Norwood’s waterworks are generally conceded by those who know’, to be the best managed of any of the town’s public institutions. Its best officials are elected again and again to office without opposition and, as a rule, it is a department of town affairs which is kept well out of politics. That is, it is an office to which some of the foremost citizens can aspire and expect it they give faithful service to be re-elected year after year without much regard to their party affiliations.

Public servants are considered good public servants if they manage the affairs of a town as well as they manage their own business affairs, but a former member of the Norwood Board of Water Commissioners once made a remark to us which we judge to have been an eminently true one:

People tell about exorcising the same care anti economy in public service that they do in their own business”, he said, “but I can say one thing for the Water Board. I believe they have managed the business of their department a great, deal more carefully and conscientiously than they would have managed their own affairs. I don’t believe any one of us would have taken the time and bother to save money and drive hard bargains in our own business affairs that we have taken in the management of the water works. I don’t know but we’d be ashamed to. We have studied and schemed and haggled over bids but we’ve worked to give the town the best possible returns for their money and I think we’ve done it.”

Water is reckoned one of the greatest necessities of modern civilization. The days when people wore willing to drink almost any old thing in the way of water, provided it was wet, are fast passing away. Florence Nightingale thought that a nurse or a soldier, or anyone else who had to, could make quite a comfortable bath in a teacup full of water. Most people nowadays prefer to bathe in a barrel full of water if they can get it. A person from the country, especially if he or she comes from one of those blessed old-fashioned localities, where the thrifty natives economize in the use of water a little more than they go in anything else outside of money, is, if boarding at a large city hotel, apt to be astounded at the lavish manner in which the guests use water in washing their faces and hands.

The demand for water for drinking and for cleanliness is, however, as nothing compared to the demand for it for fire purposes. Whatever else in the consumption of water may seem to some a luxury, its when some consumption for fire purposes is acknowledged to be a necessity. It is this need of water for the protection of public and private property which has induced country towns to appropriate money for public water supplies.

It is said that some twenty years ago, when a public water supply for Norwood was being agitated, there came along the Universalist church fire which destroyed a beautiful church edifice and imperiled about all the business part of the town that at that time amounted to much. All the water available for use at the fire was obtained from the meadows at the back of the town. It is claimed that that fire converted many people and that though a few old conservatives hold out, at the next special town meeting, water works wore adopted by a large and definite majority. As often happens in such cases, the very men who, up to the very last moment be opposed to the introduction of water in the town, were the very first to put it into their own homes.

The place suggested for the town’s, water supply was the beautiful Buck-master pond in the town of Westwood, about 20 miles from the centre of Norwood. The town acted on this suggestion and the wisdom of such action has been amply demonstrated by results. Norwood water is good water or else the facts of chemistry are not facts and State Boards of Health great liars. Tap water in this season of 1904 has tasted remarkably well and looked well. There was a short period a few years ago when the presence of algae in the water made it taste rather disagreeable and gave it at times an unpleasant odor. This has not been noticed however for the past four or five years. A visit to the beautiful Buckmaster pond surrounded as it is by hills and woods and beautiful country scenery will well repay anyone. It is a lovely little lake and the water seems as clear and pure as an angel’s smile. It is believed that this pond or lake is fed by subterranean springs. At all events the supply exhibits no special signs of giving out and Buckmaster Pond seems destined to be the source of the town’s water for very many years to come.

Buckmaster Pond cost the town nothing. It was what is known as a state pond when the town took possession of it. The land around it where the pumping station is located cost the town about §300 and was purchased of Samuel F. Allen. The pumping station was built in 1886.

The contract for building it was given to F. A. Bales, whoso bid was S3,550. The power for pumping is furnished by an engine having a 1,500,000 gallon capacity per 24 hours. A long ton of coal a day is used and the buildings about the station have a storage capacity of about 300 tons. Some 450,000 gallons of water are pumped. The water stored in the reservoir on Bellevue Avenue in Norwood is kept clear and pure, The reservoir has a capacity of about 1,300,000 gallons. George A. P. Bucknum who has been tho very faithful and efficient superintendent of the waterworks since the pumping station was established, has taken the greatest interest in beautifying all the land belonging to the town near the pond. Flower beds and shrubbery have been put in and wasteland redeemed as rapidly as the means at Mr. Bucknum’s disposal would allow and the surroundings of the pumping station make it the most handsome piece of public property the town owns, in fact it is the town’s nearest approach to a public park. Mr. Bucknum’s erne aud labor bestowed on the property indicates fine taste and much skill as a landscape gardener on his part Mr. Bucknum’s work has of course been paid for but Iio has done much work in gardening and in the care of the grounds which has practically been his own gift to the town, doing it in extra hours and for his own satisfaction.

There is still considerable land about the pond unimproved and the place bids fair to grow more and more beautiful.

The pond is kept pretty well guarded and protected, and trespassers are severely punished so that there is very little chance that the pond will become polluted. The Water Commissioners have an idea that the time is not far distant when it will be well to build a dwelling house on the grounds for the use of a resident engineer so that the pond and the pumping station may be looked after day and night. The expenses of running the system have thus far been so great that the Commissioners have not as yet felt that it would be advisable to ask the town for money for such tin object, but when the pumping facilities are properly improved, the ’own may be ready to consider some such proposition as the one above outlined. The Commissioners, however, believe in moving slowly and economically m all those matters.

The town’s water supply has cost the taxpayers much less for the advantages afforded them than most town water supplies do. Aside from the immense amount of water daily consumed for all sorts of domestic and fire purposes, water plays a prominent and important part in the operation of most of Norwood’s chief industries. Norwood water works are particularly favored and extensively utilized by the town’s important manufacturing concerns, all the manufactories having to depend principally upon town water for what water they use. In this connection, perhaps, may be mentioned the fact that there has been for some years a proposition before the town to greatly increase its water facilities and to weld the interests of Norwood and n neighboring town closer together The great industries of East Walpole are within hailing distance of the Norwood lino and the subject has been broached to the town of Walpole of bringing their pipeline down to the town line of Norwood and arrangements made whereby in cases of emergency the water supply of either town can be used by the other.

To pursue the history of Norwood’s “water system and the doings of its water board. The first committee appointed to examine into the matter of the introduction of waterworks was appointed December 15, 1884. The committee consisted of J. Edward Everett, Frank A. Fales, David S. Fogg, Francis M. Baker, George H. Morrill, and Thomas J. Casev. Four out of the original seven members of the committee are now deceased.

The first water commissioners selected were J. Edward Everett, George H. Morrill, and Francis M. Baker. There was no second annual report of the commission. The third annual report bears the names of J. Edward Everett, and Ward L. Gay as commissioners. In 1888 Edmund J, Shattuck was named a member of the Water Board and held that office til 1903 having the longest term of office of any Water Commissioner the town has ever had. During the years when he was a member of the board, the water works were put on a good financial basis. In fact, Mr. Shattuck took a great pride in giving the town the very best service in his power and in exercising his exceptionally fine business abilities in the service of the public. In the same year, 1888, which witnessed Mr. Shattuck’s election to the board, Charles Wheelock, the town’s present treasurer, was elected a water* commissioner to fill the vacancy caused by the decease of J. Edward Everett. In the year 1889, owing to their disagreement with the Selectmen over matters of finance, Ward L . G.iy and Edmund J. Shattuck tendered their resignations of water conimissionship to the Town Clerk.

At a special town meeting held May 18, 1889. John Gillooly was elected a water commissioner to fill out the term of Ward L. Gay, E. J. Shattuck being absent from the meeting, was re-elected. The matters in dispute with the Selectmen were satisfactorily adjusted, the Selectmen transferring to the Water Commissioners full control of all financial matters. In that year, 1889, Edmund J. Shattuck was elected chairman and held that position till his final retirement from the board fourteen years later. John Gillooly was re-elected water commissioner. In 1889 Francis Guy wa« elected commissioner in place of Charles T. Wheelock. In 1891 Mr. Shattuck was reelected, being elected for three years.

Soon after this, Mr Guy tendered his resignation to the board on account of his removal from town. In 1892 Yarcus M. Alden was elected to the board, serving with Mr. Gillooly and Mr Shattuck and beginning a valuable term of service which continued for about 11 i ar । Mr. Alden, like Mr. Shattuck regarded public oilice as a public trust and put much time, labor and business ability into a position to which ho was again and again elected. In 1893 Edward Morse was elected to the board for the term of three years. In 1894 Mr. Shattuck was re-elected to the board for the term of three years. ()n March 19, 1894, an accident at the factory of II. M and H. E. Plimpton removed by death Mr. Morse, one of the town’s most useful and justly popular citizens. On April 16, 1894, John F Callahan was elected to fill the vacancy caused In the death of Mr. Morse and has provided a capable and conscientious conimivioncr, a worthy follower in the footsteps of those long-serving and faithful officials, Marcus M. Alden and the late E. J. Shattuck.

Mr. Callahan has again and again been re-elected to the position of water commissioner and is at the present time chairman of the beard. From 1894 til 1903 there was but one change in the mix=up of the water board. In 1901 partly on account of increasing ill health, E. J. Shattuck declined re-election to the board, and William F. Baker whose father who had been connected with the introduction of water Boards years before, was elected. Mr. Alden was made chairman of the board. In the present year, James H. Butler was elected in place of Marcus M. Alden, who declined a reflection.

In its twenty years of history, the total cost of the waterworks plant has been $177,023.65. The net debt of the plant today is $52,023.65. In other words the several boards of commissioners have paid on the plant account $1,250.00.

The earnings of the water works last year, figuring on maintenance, repairs and 4 percent on the total cost of the works was $6,373.97. The profit of operation in 1903 figured in actual payments for internal maintenance and repairs was $10,294.92.

One point about the water works management should be noted. On the first of January of each year, there has been a clean set of books with no water rates uncollected and no bills left unpaid.

At the last town meeting the Water Commissioners were authorized to build an addition to the pumping station and to increase their pumping facilities. The town voted to raise and appropriate the sum of $85.00 for the purpose. This work is now under way. The new building is being constructed and the pump is ready for shipment. The new pump will have the same capacity as the old one, only that it will enable the town to take eight feet more of water from the pond, the machinery being placed eight feet lower down than in the older arrangement. When this work is finished the two pumps may be used alternately either one being capable of pumping all the water necessary for the town’s use.