The public water supply was installed during the mayoralty of F. L. Fowke, in 1904, under a commission consisting of W. F. Cowan, chairman; Robt. McLaughlin, Robert McCaw and Dr. T. E. Kaiser; Mr. Willis Chipman, Toronto, was the engineer, and W. J. McKnight, the contractor; original cost, $135,000. Since its installation many additions and changes have taken place, at considerable cost, but scarcely any town in Canada can show a more justifiable expenditure of money than Oshawa can produce in regard to her public supply of water. Typhoid fever was an annual plague for a generation of time, but it almost immediately disappeared upon the advent of a general supply of pure water. Under the chairmanship of Rev. Carpus French, the system had been largely extended and perfected, while Mr. J. L. Whattam in 1920, as chairman of the Commission, undertook the immense expansion of that year, to cost $250,000.