Frederic Graff

Background

Frederic Graff was born on May 23, 1817, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Frederick and Judith (Swyer) Graff.

Education

Graff's father, because he felt that his own experience as an engineer had been one of more anxiety than profit, decided that his son should have a business career. Accordingly, the latter, after the completion of his schooling, was placed with a hardware firm to learn that business.

He soon found this work not to his liking and began the study of engineering with his father and in spite of him.

Career

In 1842, Graff became an assistant engineer in the water department of Philadelphia and five years later, at his father’s death, succeeded him as chief engineer of the department.

Graff held this position from 1847 to 1856 and from 1866 to 1872, and has the distinction of being the first chief engineer elected to the water department after it was made an independent bureau at the time of the consolidation of Philadelphia in 1854.

The effect of his work was to remodel the old decentralized system of water-supply into a modern unified system suitable for a metropolitan district of the size of Philadelphia, with a planned provision for expansion in pace with the future growth of the city.

As chief engineer of the water department and a park commissioner, Graff, in 1851, recommended the establishing of a park upon the Schuylkill River, for which he prepared maps and plans.

This recommendation was acted upon, and during his service as a commissioner the East Side Park lands were purchased and improved and subsequently developed into the Fairmount Park System.

From 1873 to 1877, Graff was associated with Henry R. Worthington of Philadelphia and New York, designer and manufacturer of water-works machinery; and for the remaining years of his life engaged in practise as a consulting engineer.

In these connections he made trials of pumping machinery and reports upon water-supply systems for many of the larger cities in the East, including those of Cambridge, Massachusets, Brooklyn, New York, Providence, Rhode Island, and Washington, D. C. , and established a reputation as one of the leading water-works engineers of his time.

He was also president of the Engineers’ Club of Philadelphia (1880) and was for three years a vice-president of the Franklin Institute. His paper, “The History of the Steam Engine in America, ” is printed in part in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, October 1876.

He died at Philadelphia.

Achievements

• As chief engineer, Graff directed the reorganization of the department which combined the various district works with the principal city works, and planned and directed the construction of the Corinthian Avenue Reservoir, the Belmont Reservoir on George’s Hill, the reservoir in the city park, and the rebuilding of the Fairmount Dam. His standing in the profession was recognized by his election to the office of president of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 after he had served as a director of the Society for several years.

Connections

Graff married Elizabeth Mathieu of Philadelphia. No children survived him.

Father:

Frederick Graff

Mother:

Judith (Swyer) Graff

Wife:

Elizabeth Mathieu