To the Board of Canal Commissioners.
        The undersigned, residents of the village of Cazenovia and its vicinity, respectfully remonstrate against the plan of converting the Cazenovia Lake into a canal reservoir.  They believe that this project, if carried into effect, would seriously injure their village in three of the chief elements of its prosperity, viz: its beauty, its salubrity and its water power.
        The pleasantness of our village as a place of residence, and the beauty of its situation, are well known; and also the fact that these advantages are derived in great part from its lake.  The shores of this beautiful sheet of water are almost universally hard and clean; with neither marsh nor mudbank, the basin being constantly full, but never overflowed.  But the planned proposed, by raising the lake above highwater mark, would cause it to wash and undermine the banks, overthrow almost every tree on its shores, and convert into marsh and swamp many acres of land.  By depressing it in summer the waters would be withdrawn from its shores, and the outlet drained, which would lay bare near the village seventy five or more acres of ground, composed chiefly of mud and covered with weeds; thus converting a beautiful object into one most offensive and unsightly.  The same exposure of the bed of the lake and outlet, charged through all past time with accumulations of dead weeds, shells, fish, aquatic insects and other organic matter, to dry up and decompose under an August and September sun, would, doubtless, during that season of fevers, prove a source of dangerous disease to our large population.  For this evil, as indeed for the former, no pecuniary damages can be any compensation.
        The retention of the waters of the lake until the season when they would be most wanted for the use of the canal, August and September, would, in the frequent event of a period of low water in early summer, much embarrass the mills at and below our village, which are accustomed during the whole year, to use the lake as a regulator of the supply of water.
        The lowering of the lake would also destroy one water power situated immediately in the village, of great value, as contributing to employ an active and most useful class of citizens. -
        These evils would more than counterbalance any benefits derived from the increase of stream during the season of late summer and autumn drought.
        The undersigned desire to direct attention to the Board and the canal engineers, to a point on the upper waters of the Chittenango creek, near Erieville, at Pool's mill.  At this point are natural facilities for constructing at moderate expense an artificial reservoir, which would furnish as much additional water as the canal can require from this stream.  At this point the beauty and pleasantness of no village will be injured; the health of no dense community will be endangered; the only damage done will be the overflowing of land of inferior quality, for which pecuniary compensation, trifling in comparison with the resources of the canal, will make complete amends.  From the construction of such a reservoir, would be derived an important increase of waterpower without involving the injury or destruction of valuable privileges now in use. -
        The undersigned therefore desire that the additional supply of water needed from Chittenango creek may be obtained from the construction of artificial reservoirs, and that Cazenovia Lake may be left without any alteration whatever. -

        Cazenovia, November 1, 1847   (in the hand of Ledyard Lincklaen)

        List of Petitioners
        Signed on or after November 1, 1847

(Arranged alphabetically from original list, as they appear on the list)

Erastus Abbott
E.M. Adams
G.M. Adams
Caleb S. Allen

E. Bannister
H. Bannister
Everett Beckley
Bishop Bennett
Henry Benson
L.E.Bigelow
Fletcher Billings
J.F. Billings
Elijah Bond
O.E. Borden
Alfred W. Brooks
Timothy F. Buel
Wm. B. Buel
James E. Burhans
William M. Burr

William C. Caswell
C.L.Chappell
John W. Chappell
W.B. Child
A. Childs
Walter Child
P.G. Childs
Willis L. Childs
Bill Clark
Jehiel Clark Jr.
G.G. Cook
S.S. Cook
Wolcott Cook
Richard Culver
Chs. C. Curtis
R. Curtis
M.A. Cushing

Lewis Damon
Peter de Clercq
Henry Delong
Isaac Dodge Jr.
J.C. Dunn
Jas. W. Dwinnelle
William H. Dwinnelle

Eliphalet Elmore
Horace Elmore

J.F. Fairchild
John Fairchild
Lewison Fairchild
S.T. Fairchild
Walter R. Farnham
Arnold L. Faulkner
Ezra Fisher
Alvin Foord
John Forstor
Henry Fox
Henry Fox Jr.
(Hiram ?) Fox
John Fox
Bartlet French
J.H. French

Joseph Gaskill
C.M. Goodrich
Lucius Griffin
Henry Groff
K.N. Guiteau

William H. Haight
Saml L. Hall
Philip Hamlin
Wm. Harris
Henry Hawl (?)
W.H. Hayse
Henry Hearsey
Amos Herrick
Adam Hesler
S.E. Hesler
M.C. Hill
E.M. Holmes
W.J. Hotchkiss
John (Wm. ?) Hunt

Samuel Ives

Joseph S. Jillson
Thomas Jones

Charles H. Law
J.L. Lawson
George S. Ledyard
J.D. Ledyard
J. Denise Ledyard
A.N. Leonard
Ledyard Lincklaen
Harvey Lovejoy
John Lyon

L. May
John M'Calpin
Cyrus Merriam
W.C. Mitchel
Hiram (Morris ?)
J.G. Morrison
J. Moore
Michael Moulter
William S. Munger

J. Needham Jr.
James Nickerson
J.R. Nichols
James Nichols
Joseph Nichols
M.S. Nichols
Nathaniel Nichols

H.G. Paddock
K. Parker
James Partridge
Elihu Peck
(Byrum ?) Perkins
W.H. Phillips
Nehemiah Price
D.M. Pulford

S.D. Redfield
Munsel (Reece ?)
John S. Remson
Isaac Rice
Sidney Roberts
Augusta H. Rouse
John Ryan

John F. Santee
Joseph Salisbury
Apollos Severence
Henry Severence
(I. ?) W. Seward
Ebenezer P. Shores
Gilbert L. Soul
Elijah Southerly
George R. Southwell
Jas. A. Stanley
Charles Stebbins Jr.
P. Stedmon

H. Talbot
Samuel Talbot
Henry Ten Eyck
Jacob Ten Eyck
S. Thomas Jr.
Samuel Thomas
A.W. Tillotson
Ephraim Tillotson
John W. Tillotson
Elbert Tremain
Isaac Trimbock
James Truax
Benjamin Tuttle
Sheldon G. Tuttle

M.L. Underwood

(Isaac ?) Van Riper
(W. ?)H. Van Riper

J.H. Ward
H.J. Weed
B. Rush Wendell
John Williams
Joseph Wilson
Jonathan Woodward
Thomas (J. ?) Woodworth