Did you ever see a house move?

If you have not, you have missed a very funny sight.

Imagine driving along a country road, and meeting a three-story house making a journey along the highway to new quarters.

There is a good deal of this to be seen just now at Katonah, New York.

A year or so ago the Croton water, which is in use in New York City, was found to be impure.

A commission was appointed to go and examine the Croton Water-Shed.  This meant that they were to examine the little streams, and brooks, and rivers, and lakes, which supplied the water to our aqueduct, and see what the trouble was.

They found that along the banks of these streams and lakes, in villages and out in the country, a great many dwelling-houses and shanties had been built, the occupants of which were in the habit of throwing all sorts of rubbish into the water, making it unfit for drinking.

In consequence of this, all of the houses were ordered to be torn down or moved away, and one small village of shanties was destroyed.  Among others, the inhabitants of Katonah were ordered to move, that the banks of the stream might be cleared of dwellings.

Katonah has a railroad depot, and a post-office, and thinks a good deal of itself.

When the Water-Shed Commission said that it must move or be destroyed, Katonah gathered its residents together, and decided that rather than be wiped off the face of the map, it would pick up its houses and move itself.

So a new Katonah was established, about a quarter of a mile away from the old one, and just outside the Water-Shed on which it was forbidden to build, for fear of spoiling the water for New York.

For several months past there has been a procession of houses moving from old Katonah to new.

[Illustration:  House moving]

The Sun gave an amusing account of seeing a barber’s shop leading the parade; this was closely followed by a large yellow cottage, with a cat, who had refused to leave her home, still seated on the front door-step.

The way that houses are moved is very simple.

You of course understand that only frame or wooden houses can be moved any distance.  Houses of stone or brick would be likely to fall to pieces, and being so heavy, the difficulty of moving them is greatly increased.  They are therefore seldom moved, and only for very short distances.

Frame houses are always put on stone or brick foundations.  If the wood were put right down on the earth, the damp would soon rot it, and the house would fall, so strong stone or brick foundations are first laid, and then the wooden house is built upon them.

When a house is to be moved, a carpenter puts beams across in all the weak spots, the ceilings are shored up, and all is made snug inside.  Then the house is raised off the foundations on beams, and made all firm underneath, and then is made to slide off its foundations on some huge rollers that are laid in the high road.