Documents Pertaining to the Relocation of Katonah,
1896 - ca. 1910
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Transcription
New York City began to develop plans to build the New Croton Dam and enlarge the Croton Reservoir in the 1880s. Katonah was in the path of those plans and eventually its properties were condemned, the owners compensated and the buildings or “improvements” auctioned off. Rather than permanently abandon their village, Katonah residents bought back many of their buildings and moved them to higher ground.
Pictured here is an 1896 taking map of Old Katonah, a photograph of old Katonah and a broadside for one of the auctions. Also included are photographs of attendees at one of the auctions; a house jacked up for the move; the tracks along which the houses were moved; and the Chapman House, ca. 1896, being moved to its new location, with the Chapman family still in it, as the laundry hanging on the front porch attests. Finally, new Katonah is pictured in a post card. These are but a few of the existing documents related to these events.