Water, water, everywhere ...

Melrose has been in the news today on account of a burst water main. This is a rare occurrence. Here is Melrose, we have a water system so reliable that we rarely stop to think about how it works. Its construction was the most herculean public works project in city history, and it was brought to us by exploited immigrant labor.

In 1867, a corporation representing Melrose, Malden, and Medford purchased Spot Pond for the purpose of supplying water to their towns. In 1870, the first pipes were laid connecting Spot Pond water to Melrose. In 1889, Massachusetts established a new corporation—the direct ancestor of today’s MWRA—to bring sewage to metropolitan Boston. Under its auspices, Melrose began construction of its sewage system in 1892.

What is largely left out of official histories and town documents is how all of this construction was financed and completed. Melrose wanted to build its water and sewage system on the cheap, and turned to short-term contractual labor to get the job done.

We would know little about their work if not for a series of strikes that received national headlines in the summer of 1896. Melrose had contracted with a New York company to complete that season’s sewage work. The company found the cheapest labor available to do the job, about 150 mostly older Italian immigrant men. The contractor refused to pay them wages upfront, and provided no housing. The men built a shanty town in the woods at Swains Pond.

On July 17^th, tensions boiled over. A foreman was attacked, the Melrose police were called in, and they chased the laborers in a running battle back to Swains Pond. The gangs now did their work under police guard. On the 22^nd, an Italian teenager pulled a gun on Frank McLaughlin, the chief of police. The boy was arrested, but Melrose was now in the grip of rumors of an Italian invasion.

The next week, the contractor was fired, and all of the workers were sent packing. Later that summer, 200 new Italian immigrants were brought in to finish the job.

The next time you flush a toilet or take a shower, remember how we got that water.