Almost every day I walk down to Larkin Plaza to see the progress on the daylighting of the Saw Mill River. It is quite a construction job. I can't wait to see the water flow on December 6, 2011.
When our present church was dedicated in 1892, there was an item in the paper that the millponds at Getty Square had been blown up in the middle of the night. There was a question whether the city administration had a legal right to do so. John Copcutt who owned at least one of the millponds had an injunction in the courts to prevent this but they did it anyway and everyone was happy that they did. The river had become a sewer system for "garbage, all strawbeds, dead cats and dogs, rotten ham and corned beef, manure and waste matter from the factories. It created a malador which was discernible some distance away”. (N. Y. Times. Jan. 23rd 1892).
At the time of the founding of our parish in 1848, the Saw Mill River was used as a power source for the factories that were being built in Yonkers. The river was originally called the Nepperhan River but became the Saw Mill River after Adrian Van der Donck built a Saw Mill on what is now Warburton Ave. Eventually dams were created along the river to harness the energy of the water. These dams became known as millponds. They were also used for recreational purposes. Parishioners of St. Mary's could sail on them in the summer and skate on them in the winter. Bridges were built on Warburton Ave and Broadway to cross people over the river and the millponds. They were a delightful asset to Yonkers.
Eventually as Yonkers became more industrialized, the river and especially the millponds became polluted. The population of Yonkers began to soar. In 1845 there were 2,517 residents, by 1860, 11,848, in 1890, 32,033. When the cornerstone of new St. Mary's was laid in built in 1890, there were two Catholic churches in Yonkers. In the next few years ten more churches were added. By 1920 there were 100,471 residents in Yonkers. Once the flow of Saw Mill River into the Hudson was channeled into a flume and put underground, Getty Square became the great shopping center in Southern
Westchester and our river disappeared from sight It is now noticed only when the Saw Mill River Parkway is flooded Hopefully we will enjoy again the rushing waters of our river as it meets the mighty Hudson river.

Next Chapter