CRAVEN A.W.

CRAVEN A.W. 20.10. 1810 Washington DC/USA 29.03. 1879 Chiswick/UK Alfred Wingate Craven, son of the naval officer Thomas Tingey, graduated in 1835 from Columbia University as a civil engineer. He was from 1837 associated with large works at Charleston SC, and rapidly rose to the first rank in his profession. At the end of his first years in the profession, he joined a large and dashing corps of young engineers in railroad engineering in South Carolina, where he won many friends by his marked character. After another decade in the railroad business in the Northeast of the United States he found that his family required a change. He became in 1849 engineer commissioner to the Croton Water Board of New York, a position he held until 1868. He moved to England in 1878 and there rapidly passed away due to cerebral softening. During his stay at Croton water works, Craven designed and carried out the building of the large reservoir in Central Park, New York. He was also engaged in the enlargement of pipes across High Bridge, and the construction of the reservoir in Boyd’s Corner, Putnam. He further asked for an accurate survey of Croton Valley, with a view of ascertaining its capacity for furnishing the adequate water supply to the city of New York. He was in addition instrumental in securing the passage of the first law establishing a general sewage system for New York City. Later, he was associated in the design of the underground railway extension along 4th Avenue. He was one of the original Members of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE, a director for many years, and its president in the term 1869-1871. Anonymous (1856). Report of the Water Committee of the Common Council of the City of Brooklyn. Spooner: Brooklyn. Anonymous (1880). Alfred W. Craven. Minutes, Institution of Civil Engineers 60: 390-393. Anonymous (1880). Alfred Wingate Craven, past president ASCE. Trans. ASCE 6: 24-26. Anonymous (1887). Craven, Alfred Wingate. Appletons’ cyclopaedia of American biography 2: 3. Appleton: New York. Craven, A.W. (1860). Answer of A.W. Craven, chief engineer Croton Aqueduct, to charges made by Fernando Wood, Mayor, New York. Baker & Goodwin: New York. Finch, J.K. (1929). Early Columbia engineers: John Stevens, James Renwick, Horatio Allen, Alfred W. Craven. Columbia University Press: New York. Hunt, C.W. (1897). Alfred Wingate Craven. Historical sketch of the American Society of Civil Engineers: 23. ASCE: New York. P

CRAVEN A. 16.09. 1846 Bound Brook NJ/USA 30.09. 1926 Pleasantville NY/USA Alfred Craven graduated in 1867 from US Military Academy, Annapolis MD, remaining in the service until 1871. He then joined the California Geological Survey, and was of the party who first climbed the Tower Peak. He was engaged on irrigation work in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, and then went into private practice at Virginia City NV. In this work he was associated with Adolph H. Sutro (1830-1898) in the construction of the Sutro Tunnel. In 1884 he became assistant engineer for the New Croton Aqueduct of the New York water supply. The Aqueduct was almost 50 km long, constructed entirely in rock, and lined with brick, designed for a capacity of 13 m3/s. From 1885, Craven served there as division engineer. He was in charge of the construction of the Reservoir D, near Carmel NY, and of the completion of Reservoir M on Titicus River, near Purdys NY. These are two of the chain of storage reservoirs built before and since the Croton Basin. Until 1900 he was employed on the building of Jerome Park Reservoir in the Borough of the Bronx. Under Craven’s administration as chief engineer, the great Dual Subway System was designed and built, corresponding to one of the largest municipally constructed projects, comparable in magnitude with Panama Canal. This project may be considered the monument to Craven. He resigned as chief engineer in 1916, and took over then as a consulting engineer of the Commission, until he retired from service in 1920. He had been one of the men, without any apparent effort on his own, who won respect and affection of all who served under him. He never sought popularity: He had but to request that a thing be done and his staff would work cheerfully to accomplish the result. His fairness and straightforward way of thinking appealed to those who had business with him, and his decisions were generally accepted, whether they were for or against the claimants. He was a member of the Society of Municipal Engineers of the City of New York, and of the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE, serving as director from 1903 to 1905, and as vice-president from 1916 to 1917. In 1908 he was awarded, under an Act of Congress, the Civil War Medal. Anonymous (1930). Alfred Craven. Trans. ASCE 94: 1506-1508. Craven, A. (1906). Discussion of Changes at the New Croton Dam. Trans. ASCE 56: 52-63. Goldman, J.A. (1997). Building of New York’s sewers. Purdue University Press: W. Lafayette P https://whittlesey-whittelseygenealogy.com/showmedia.php?mediaID=137&medialinkID=148 P