The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-07-26

 No description of old times in Bridgeport would be complete without a retrospective view of the inception ! of the Hydraulic Water company, the ruling genius of which was Uncle Joe" Richardson, a well known char acter.
 As far back as ISIS, the people of Bridgeport used rain water for wash ing their clothes and dishes and well water to drink. Very little of the latter was absorbed, however, because of the numerous, bar-rooms, conVen- iently located, all worthy of the high est appreciation for their apparently inexha ustible supply of old New Eng | land rum.
 The Rev. Elijah Waterman, how ever, who lived on top of Golden Hill in ISIS, had a splendid spring, clear ] and sparkling, in his door-yard. From 1 this fountain head he ran a wooden 1 pipe line down to Main street. | Cistern Near Meigs Building About the same time, Philo Hurd | also ran a pipe from a spring in his back yard, at the corner of Harrison i and Golden Hill streets, down to | Beaver street, now Fairfield avenue. with a terminal in a large cistern at | the corner of Beaver and Main streets, | near where is now the Meigs building. | A second cistern was located at the corner of Cannon and Broad streets. l These two ciSterns were used by the old hand fire engines, and the two wooden pipe lines supplied water to | families living near by.
 | Such was the water supply then, and the Rev. MT. Waterman pro nounced doom to the bar-rooms, sin cerely believing that the good people of Bridgeport preferred water to rum. It has taken over a hundred years to prove that the majority don't! l Lewis c. Segee bought out the rev. erend gentleman's water works and continued to hold the ownership until 1858. Then Nathaniel Green came to l the fore, and, after securing perm1s- 1 sion from the Common Council to lay pipes through the streets of the city, | he started to build reservoir in North 1 Bridgeport
 After various vicissitudes, MT. Green gave up the job, after which Uncle Joe" Richardson came before the public as a saviour of water and a distributor of bog soup to counter act the extensive rum trade which had grown to such proportions that the 1 annual excise tax amounted to more than $SOO,O0O.
 A stock company was organized. Richardson became president, Charles H. Thorp, secretary and treasurer, and George Richardson, son of Joseph, su- perintendent.
 Coffin Made Of A Tree
 Uncle Joe' was a man of tempera- ment and varied idiosynCrasies. The first thing that happened to make people aware of the type of man he . was occurred Wn1lS the TeSe1NOlf WOrk | was progressing. Lightning, in play ing it's zigzaS game, struck a pear tree in MT. Richardson's door yard and split it wide open. He at once 1 gathered the shattered pieces and ord cred one of his men to build a coffin | of the wood. He was measured and the coffin was constructed to fit, and 1 becOmingly lined. It stood for many years in the front hallway of his home in North Bridgeport, waiting, and was l ultimately transferred to his Spite | House" in New York. This was where | MT. Richardson passed his last years, | after he had constructed for the New York Central Railroad company the long overhead tunnel leading into the
 Grand Central Station.
 Before MT. Richardson had occasion to use his homemade casket, there l were many trials and tribulations that gathered about him as head of the Bridgeport Water Works. The pipes
 that were laid to carry the citys l water supply were made of cement,
 with an outside cover of thin iron. | Through these pipes came all sorts
 of dirty water and foul deposits until
 the townspepole became indignant.
 Eels got fastened in the pipes leading | to dwellings, stopping the flow of the
 water; they got into the pipes that sup
 piled factories, and fires under boilers
 had to be drawn for fear. they would
 explode.
 The public was infuriated. so much
 So that they called the rather uncer-
 tain liquid that was served to then
 instead of water ''bog soup." And
 of course, all the blame for these
 annoyances was heaped upon the de, | fenseless head of the president o1 l the company, instead of upon the
 heads of the directors, who were tht
 actual promoters of the enterprise | One of these was Amos S Treat l who was proverbia1ly appearing il
 print with all sorts of excuses. invar
 ablY ending with the words: 'sWt
 are fdoing the best we can Amo
 S. Treat" That cry was repeated