A permanent board of water and sewerage commissioners was created by an act of April 2, 1869. The board received exclusive power to cause streets to be repaved, regraded, and repaired; to cause cross-walks to be relaid and sidewalks to be reflagged; and generally to have such other improvements, in and about such streets so to be repaved, regraded, or repaired, to be made, as in their judgment the public wants and convenience shall require. The board held other authority, afterward vested in the board of city works. The charter of the Nassau Water Company was obtained in 1855. In 1857 the city had acquired all the contracts, property, and rights of the Nassau Company. The thirty-six inch main laid from Ridgewood in 1858 was followed by an additional forty-eight inch main laid in 1867. Three mains have since been added, giving the city water from a drainage area of seventy-four square miles. The act of 1869, by which the fire department of the city was reorganized, called upon the Mayor, the street commissioners, the president of the Board of Aldermen, the city treasurer, and the comptroller, to appoint four citizens as fire commissioners: "Said commissioners, on being qualified, shall meet and reorganize the fire department of the city of Brooklyn, by electing one of said commissioners to be president, and appointing a person to be secretary; whereupon they shall possess and have all the power and authority conferred upon or possessed by any and all officers of the present fire departments of the city of Brooklyn, and of each division thereof, except such power and authority as is now vested by law in the trustees of the fire departments of the Eastern and Western districts of the city of Brooklyn, which said divisions shall continue distinct from each other, so far as relates to the Widows' and Orphans' Fund of each district, but for no other purpose; and the persons elected and now acting as the trustees of the Widows' and Orphans' Fund of the Eastern District, and those elected and acting as trustees of the Widows' and Orphans' Fund of the Western District, shall remain and continue to have and exercise, each division respectively, all such powers and duties as are now vested by law in said boards, with regard to the Widows' and Orphans' Fund of each district" (sec. 2). By the report of School Superintendent Buckley, issued in July (1869), it appeared that the whole number of pupils attending the public day schools numbered 70,000. In the evening schools 10,000 more were taught, while the private schools received 22,142 scholars. At this time the value of the schoolhouse sites in the city was placed at $276,386; that of the buildings at $709,727.