Towpath Wa Ik

BLACKSTONE CANAL MORTHBRIDCE - UXBRIDCE, MA. Towpath Wa Ik A self-guided walk along the historic Blackstone Canal. BLACKSTONE RIVER VALLEV National Heritage Corridor BLACKSTONE CAN A L In the early part of the roth century, America was in the midst Inspired by the success of the Erie Canal [begun in 1817] of a second revolution. In many ways it was a quiet revolution, and spurred by the remarkable expansion of textile manufac- one that has gone largely unsung and uncelebrated. turing along the Blackstone in the early roth century, Yet it was a revolution that profoundly and permanently a group of Providence and Worcester merchants formed the changed the way Americans live. It transformed a provincial Blackstone Canal Company in 1822.The canal would meet agrarian society into an industrial giant, moved whole the considerable transportation demands of inland factories, populations off the farm and into the factories, and altered which needed both to obtain raw materials and to ship our relationship with the .--- .-_ .. - finished products to market. ._.-.-------: ---===~~:;;! land, with time, and Overland travel on poor with each other. In time, 19th-century roads was time- it altered the landscape consuming and expensive. and affected nearly It could cost as much to haul every aspect of daily life. a ton of freight 30 miles over- The revolution we land as it cost to ship it to are talking about is, England. The Blackstone of course, America's Canal brought a savings of Industrial Revolution. nearly 50 percent on goods Towing a canal boat There is no better place The Blackstone Canal was built before the shipped to Worcester from Providence by canal over those advent of steam engines and other forms to begin to understand of self-propulsion. Horses were used to carried overland from Boston. pull the boat, carrying as much as 40 tons of freight, along the shallow, slow-moving its development than water. Two horses, one behind the other, But the canal was plagued with problems from the outset. were attached to the boat by a tow rope here on the banks of the and led along the towpath by a teamster. Mill owners argued over water rights. Ice closed the canal in Blackstone River, where it all began over 200 years ago. winter. The canal was susceptible to flood and drought. The Blackstone, once "the hardest working river in The greatest cause of the canal's demise was the Providence America," descends 438feet in its 45-mile course from and Worcester Railroad, completed in 1847.The railroad Worcester, Massachusetts, to Providence, Rhode Island. was cheaper, faster, and more reliable than the canal, and the By the early zoth century, 409 feet of the river's fall was canal ceased operation a year after the railroad opened. utilized by 34 dams providing power to adjacent mills. The trail described in this brochure takes you along the For a span of 20 years, from 1828to 1848,segments of Blackstone River and one of the few remaining sections of the the river were paralleled by a man-made canal on which canal. The numbered sites tell the story of the canal, of the horse-drawn boats carried freight and passengers between shift from farm to factory that it facilitated, and of the impact landlocked Worcester and the wharfs of Providence. of the Industrial Revolution on the land and its people. 0 Local farmers, as well as manufacturers, shipped a wide range of products from Plummer's Landing. ER'S IMe o (00 miles, north side of Church Sf) (.80 miles) The Blackstone Canal had been When the Blackstone Canal was established for nearly 10 years when operational, most of New England 27-year-old Israel Plummer constructed looked like this cleared land. In fact a general store and warehouse beside atthe time of the Civil War in 1861, an existing canal lock in 1837. Boats 85 percent of New England had been entering the lock could easily tie up cleared for grazing livestock and in the adjacent basin used to control planting crops. Wood was used for the water level in the lock. Plummer's construction and fuel. Landing became an important commercial center. Local farmers brought their products to be shipped to expanding markets, while coal, cotton, molasses and other goods produced 10M outside the Valley arrived at Plummer's. When the Providence and Worcester (14 miles) Railroad replaced the canal in 1847, Plummer took advantage of the railroad The Blackstone Canal merged with for a new business venture, shipping navigable portions of the river for high quality structural granite from a approximately 10% of its 45 mile quarry just a half-mile west of here. course. The rest was hand-dug, ~ PARKING Today we can walk through the founda- using ox carts, picks, axes, iron bars, -- WALKING TOUR tion stones of Plummer's buildings and shovels, and limited quantities of .•..•.•• TOW PATH picture a time when this was a bustling black powder. The canal bed was stop on the canal. prism-shaped, 34-feet wide at the top and 18-feet at the bottom, and just 4- to 6-feet deep. It was fed by a system of reservoirs, most of which were natural ponds enlarged by damming. The tow path was about (1.7 miles) 3 feet higher than the water level A series of canal locks helped boats (0.05 miles, south of parking lot) and 8- to 1O-feet wide. A thousand to ascend and descend the elevation The Blackstone Canal was built with men worked in the Massachusetts changes between Worcester and 48 stone locks and one wooden lock. section alone in 1827, earning about Providence. Forty-eight were built of When the Blackstone Canal Company $26 a month working 6 days a week stone quarried close to where they were went out of business in 1849, many of from dawn to dusk. The Cana I was erected. Cut stone was more expensive the locks were given to creditors to officially opened in the fall of 1828 than wood, appoximately $4,000 per satisfy significant debts. Some locks after four construction seasons and lock, but required less maintenance. were taken apart and the granite used a cost of $750,000. The locks were 1O-feet wide with to build power trenches and mill 82 feet between the large oak gates on extensions. If you look under the either end. The average lift of a lock bridge that crosses the canal at Church was 9 }ffeet Wooden sheathing lined Street you will see a portion of lock 26 the lock to help protect the canal boats now used as a bridge abutment as they passed through. An attendant Further down this trail, at Goat Hill, operated the locks and collected tolls, you will see one of the last remaining but later, to cut costs, the attendants examples of a canal lock. were eliminated and tolls were billed. River Bend Farm, established' prior to the Revolutionary War, became one of the region's largest dairy farms, operating until 1974. ACT MC (275 miles) (365 miles) Fresh produce was a common commodity When the Canal was transformed into a on Blackstone Canal boats. Although high banked power trench, the tow path many New England farms would be was raised, the canal banks lined with STO abandoned in the 19th and early 20th rock, and the canal diverted directly into century, the canal stimulated local farm the Taft Central Mill, where water (20 miles) (2.25 miles) production, enabling farmers to ship their flowed to the mill's turbine, generating Engineers used stone from this hillside After the Blackstone Canal Company products to nearby villages and towns. power to operate the mill. to construct the Goat Hill Lock. Notice went out of business in 1849, owners the holes in this boulder. An iron rod of the Taft Central Mill (later Stanley called a star drill was held by hand on Woolen Mill) about a mile south built the rock surface and hammered with an a 14-ft dam along Hartford Avenue, D iron mallet. The drill would be turned creating a 100-acre mill storage pond. slightly and hammered again, drilling a For over 90 years the pond waters hole 2 ~-inches deep. Holes were drilled stretched out to the hillsides, covering (3.2 miles) (3.B miles) 3- to 4-inches apart. Next. splitting the canal towpath and lock. During the Widow Willard's farm was split in half The Stanley Woolen Mill, established devices called feather wedges were hurricane of 1955, the dam breached, when the Blackstone Canal Company by Moses Taft in 1853, is one of many placed in the drilled holes. The stone exposing the remains of the Canal, took part of her land by "eminent large textile mills that flourished along cutter would then drive an iron stake towpath, lock and bridge abutments. domain." Her barns and livestock were the Blackstone River in the 19th and between the wedges, splitting the The dam was rebuilt to 9 feet. leaving on one side of the canal, most of her early part of the 20th century. Taft. for- stone. The stone here appears not to the Canal channel and towpath visible pastures on the other side. The com- merlya co-owner of the Waucantuck have cracked where the stone cutter below the path around Goat Hill. pany was required by charter to pay Millon Route 16, secured water rights wanted, and his tools were caught in the her $125 or build a bridge over the from the defunct Blackstone Canal uneven break of the stone, leaving them canal so that farm operations would Company, allowing him to divert water for us to see.

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