there were a lot of water elevators in new england some of them installed as early as the 1860's most of them were powered directly from the city water supply and yes they were controlled by shipper ropes. some of the hi speed ones did have pressure vessels filled with steam pumps and some did run up to 600fpm also there were roped water units with horizontal pistons and cylinders i even encountered a water hydro drum machine long ago when i was young sadly the last of these were shutdown several years ago in mass as now one could determine the condition of the cylinders (some of which had been in service over 150 years
