This rarely-seen portfolio of four different drawings shows various details of the intake basin for the Centre Square Water System. Each of the four is presented in two forms: the original pen-and-in and watercolor versions, possibly drawn by Frederick Graff, Sr. between 1799 and 1802; and a simplified outline version in black ink done in 1904 by a draftsman who, at first, I thought was anonymous. But in preparing this page I looked carefully at this representation of the works, with the initials J.R.G.,  The same draftsman seems to have done, based on the fact that the title on both this porfolio and the plan are identical.

Until I saw these drawings, I had little understanding of the scope and complexity of this portion of the the city's first water works. The only other drawing I had seen that showed the intake was a crude drawing by Frederic Graff, Sr., which possesses neither the detail nor the beauty of these drawings. PWD interns in the 1980s wrote a report on on PWD-related holdings at the Historical Society of Pennslvania collection that included these drawings. I found this report in 2014, and ordered high resolution copies. The .jpg files presented here are reduced in both size and quality from those original files.

Visit this page to find links to other groups of Centre Square drawings on WaterHistoryPHL, and links to more in-depth history of this historic water works.