The location of a sanitorium where Jean Clemens resided and took therapy for her epilepsy.
Katonah /ˈkətoʊnə/ is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) within the town of Bedford, Westchester County, in the U.S. state of New York.
Katonah is named for Chief Katonah,[2] an American Indian from whom the land of Bedford was purchased by a group of English colonists.
During the American Revolution military battles or skirmishes did not take place in the area that is now the Village of Katonah. However, most local men joined the Continental side, with some joining the New York 4th Regiment of the Line and most joining the local Militia. Though Bedford Township lay in what was called "Neutral Ground", supposedly unmolested by military forces of either side, its inhabitants were preyed on by the lawless of both sides. This area suffered less from such depredations than other areas in the Neutral Ground, because of the proximity of the Croton River and the "Westchester Lines", a sparse string of outposts defended by units of the Continental Army.[3]
Founded with the name Whitlockville, the town changed its name, and later was moved south to its present site in 1897, when its former site (Old Katonah) was flooded by the construction of the New Croton Dam, which raised the water level behind it enough to submerge the existing Muscoot Dam, and the town, under the resultantly expanded Muscoot Reservoir.[4] More than 50 buildings were moved from the old site to New Katonah, rolled on logs pulled by horses. The move was originally ordered to start in 1894, but litigation delayed the process by almost three years. Evidently, not all of the moved houses were within the affected area, leaving empty foundations where new houses would eventually be built upon.
An eleven-year-old child named B. Robertson wrote the following to a children's magazine on March 2, 1897:
The people of Katonah do not want to have it thought that New York City has made them move because they are careless about their drainage. It is because the city is going to make a new reservoir where the old village of Katonah now stands. Katonah has three churches, a public library and reading-room, a village improvement association, and a graded school, and was proud of itself.
— 11-year-old B. Robertson, in a letter to a children's magazine[5]
Katonah was not the only village affected by New York City's growing demand for water. The villages of Kirbyville and New Castle Corners were also condemned by the city but were never moved.[6]