Water for Hartford

The story of Hartford's water works is a fascinating one, for it recalls the hard work, great sacrifice, and extraordinary engineering feats necessary to deliver wholesome drinking water to a growing urban center. It also illuminates the ever-changing social, political, and economic milieu in which it was built.
The story of its construction is also the story of three men-Hiram Bissell, Ezra Clark, and Caleb Saville. Readers are transported back in time and given a firsthand glimpse of what these champions of a water system faced on a daily basis: unforgiving geography, venal politicians, and an often-indifferent public. The book culminates in the exhilaration of having built a water works from scratch to deliver clean, safe drinking water to the masses. Water for Hartford is a human story, peopled by men of vision and achievement, who understood that their decisions and actions would affect millions of people for decades to come.

KEVIN MURPHY is a writer whose interest in water systems dates back to fly-fishing trips in the West Branch Valley of the Farmington River--below the Metropolitan District Commission's Hogback Reservoir. A 1971 graduate of Villanova University, he worked at the Hartford Courant through the 1970s and then ran a successful building business until 2000. Today, he writes full time, but still manages to spend summer afternoons fly-fishing on the Farmington River in and around the tiny village of Riverton. He is also the author of The Crowbar Governor (2010).