Cruquius gets its name from Nicolaas Kruik (1678–1754), a Dutch land-surveyor and one of many promoters of a plan to pump the Haarlemmermeer (Haarlem lake) dry.

Like many well-educated men of his time, he latinized his name to Nicolaas Samuel Cruquius.

During his lifetime the issue of the Haarlem Lake and how to pump it dry was international news, as the following excerpt from the Virginia Gazette on May 31, 1751, illustrates:[3] "By a private letter from Rotterdam, we are told, that the Dutch Engineers, in their Plan for draining the lake of Haerlem, proposed to employ 150 mills for three Years, and had computed the Expense at a Million and Half of Florins, but that a German, who had been long employed in the Mines of Hungary and Hartz, had proposed to drain it with 50 machines, in 15 months, at a far less Expense; and that he has been ordered to erect one of those Machines, which, if it shall be found to execute what he has asserted, his Proposal will be immediately accepted.

"Even 50 machines proved too expensive, so it wasn't until successful experiments with steam pumping stations, such as at nearby Groenendaal park in 1781, that serious plans resulted in three steam driven pumping stations, including the one at Cruquius.

To service the mill, the workers who lived there founded the village of the same name.