Could this have been part of the old Croton Aqueduct? I'm not familiar with the area, but maps seem to indicate it ran through that general area. Thanks, Rick "1838 Work begins in May on an aqueduct to carry water 41 miles to the city from the Croton River in northern Westchester. Farmers have resisted, but he state legislature at Albany has given the city the right to condemn land for the acqueduct. West Point engineering professor Major David B. Douglass has initiated its design and placement, bankers who include the Rothschilds in Europe have raised $12 million to finance the project, and by next year some 4,000 men will be working on the project. The City Water Commission will replace Douglass in 1839 with Erie Canal veteran John B. Jervis, and he will see the project through to completion, paying laborers—most of the Irish immigrants— 75 cents to $1 per 10-hour day to build a 250-foot-long, 50-foot high dam that creates a 400-acre lake six miles above the junction of the Croton and Hudson rivers with a storage capacity of about 660 million gallons. By January 1841 Jervis will have completed about 32 miles of the waterway, including a massive 88-foot-long double stone arch bridge across the Sing Sing Kill in downtown Ossining and a brick-lined tube consisting of 12 tunnels, each 8-feet high and 7-feet wide, with an aggregate length of 4,406 feet." (from The New York Chronology by James Trager, Published by Harper Collins, 2003) _http://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA78&ots=sU_62PtdZP&dq=Ossin ing+brick+arches&sig=zJ7ru8OMNwumgBnGwA61aVMqgQo#PPP1,M1_ (http://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA78&ots=sU_62PtdZP&dq=Ossining+brick+arches&sig =zJ7ru8OMNwumgBnGwA61aVMqgQo#PPP1,M1) ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

If water ran thru it once there should be some indication like old water marks or mineral deposits. On the other hand I am not an expert on aqueducts. Question for all: Those "airholes" in the ground that I saw in the pictures and that were mentioned in at least one of the articles I read online after I Googled it recently.....were they made by the people today who went down to look after the discovery?? Or were there "airholes" in the brick from long ago?? Recent would be understandable but if made when the structure was built that would be another puzzle. BTW we had root cellars when I was growing up on the farm and they were never made of anything but dirt. Otherwise the purpose would be defeated. So I ruled out root cellar right away in my guesses.....and why would anyone need a wine cellar that looked like that?? Maureen ----- Original Message ----- From: <RickVT@aol.com> To: <nywestch@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 12:28 PM Subject: Re: [NYWESTCH] Road repair unearths massive old structure in Ossining > > Could this have been part of the old Croton Aqueduct? I'm not familiar > with > the area, but maps seem to indicate it ran through that general area. > > Thanks, > Rick > > "1838 > > Work begins in May on an aqueduct to carry water 41 miles to the city > from > the Croton River in northern Westchester. Farmers have resisted, but he > state > legislature at Albany has given the city the right to condemn land for the > acqueduct. West Point engineering professor Major David B. Douglass has > initiated its design and placement, bankers who include the Rothschilds > in Europe > have raised $12 million to finance the project, and by next year some > 4,000 > men will be working on the project. The City Water Commission will > replace > Douglass in 1839 with Erie Canal veteran John B. Jervis, and he will see > the > project through to completion, paying laborers—most of the Irish > immigrants— > 75 cents to $1 per 10-hour day to build a 250-foot-long, 50-foot high dam > that > creates a 400-acre lake six miles above the junction of the Croton and > Hudson rivers with a storage capacity of about 660 million gallons. By > January > 1841 Jervis will have completed about 32 miles of the waterway, including > a > massive 88-foot-long double stone arch bridge across the Sing Sing Kill > in > downtown Ossining and a brick-lined tube consisting of 12 tunnels, each > 8-feet high > and 7-feet wide, with an aggregate length of 4,406 feet." > > > > (from The New York Chronology by James Trager, Published by Harper > Collins, > 2003) > > _http://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA78&ots=sU_62PtdZP&dq=Ossin > ing+brick+arches&sig=zJ7ru8OMNwumgBnGwA61aVMqgQo#PPP1,M1_ > (http://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA78&ots=sU_62PtdZP&dq=Ossining+brick+arches&sig > =zJ7ru8OMNwumgBnGwA61aVMqgQo#PPP1,M1) > > > > > ************************************** See what's free at > http://www.aol.com. > *************************************** > Have you checked out the Westchester County GenWeb site yet? > http://www.rootsweb.com/~nywestch/ > *************************************** > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NYWESTCH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message