Towpath Topics Middlesex Canal Association P.O
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Towpath Topics Middlesex Canal Association P.O. Box 333 Billerica, MA 01821 www.middlesexcanal.org Volume 58 No. 1 September 2019 At long last, the necessary permits and approvals are in order and construction may soon begin in conjunction with the effort to transform the cloth warehouse at 2 Olm Elm Street into the MCA Museum. Pictured here is the rear of the warehouse where an observation deck overlooking the Concord River Mill Pond will project outward from the structure. In the distance the Faulkner Street Bridge and the building currently housing the MCA Museum and Visitors’ Center are visible. Please mark your calendars! Editors’ Letter Dear Readers, MCA Sponsored Events As the summer winds down, nights are already getting cooler and possibly frost on 2019-2020 Schedule the car window this morning! With fall’s arrival comes a return to “Normal”: school, meetings, fairs, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas... Yikes! Getting carried away 17th Annual Bicycle Tour North, 9:00 A.M., Saturday, October 5, 2019 … This issue is packed with activities and reading material to transition into the next Fall Walk, 1:30 P.M., Sunday, October 20, 2019 season, starting with The Fall Bicycle Tour, The Fall Walk, and The Fall Meeting. This Billerica-Chelmsford fall’s speaker will be Dr. Robert M. Thorson, author of The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau’s River Years so be sure to mark your calendars. Fall Meeting, 1:00 P.M., Sunday, October 27, 2019 After the President’s Message, descriptions of events, and a recap of the May Annual Speaker: Dr. Robert M. Thorson, author of Meeting, there is a book review by Marlies Henderson, concerning a book written by The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau’s River Years the father of a past docent and an article (reprinted with permission) by Capt. Larz Neilson about the canal landscape. Winter Meeting, 1:00 P.M. Sunday, February 9, 2020 As a special feature, John Ciriello has contributed his research on the Tay Family Speaker: TBA and the Tay Tavern and their relationship to the Middlesex Canal. The biographies compiled by Alan Seaberg from A Social History of the Middlesex Canal continue, and The Visitor/Center Museum is open Saturday and Sunday, noon – 4pm, last to wrap up, a poem about the canal by Tristan Macdonald. except on holidays. The Board of Directors meets the 1st Wednesday of As always, each month, 3:30-5:30pm, except July and August. Deb, Alec, and Robert Visit www.middlesexcanal.org for up-to-date listings of MCA events MCA Sponsored Events and Directions to Museum and other events of interest to canallers! 17th Annual Bicycle Tour North: On Saturday, October 5, 2019 riders are encour- aged to meet at 9:00 A.M. at the Middlesex Canal plaque, Sullivan Square MBTA TABLE OF CONTENTS Station (1 Cambridge Street, Charlestown, MA 02019). The ride will follow the canal route for 38 miles to Lowell. There will be a stops for snacks at the Kiwanis Park Topic Page across from the Baldwin Mansion (2 Alfred Street, Woburn, MA 01801 ~ 12:30 P.M.) Editors’ Letter 3 and for a visit to the Middlesex Canal Museum (71 Faulkner Street, North Billerica, MCA Sponsored Events and Directions to Museum 3 MA 01862 ~ 3:00 P.M.) The tour will arrive in Lowell in time for the 5:00 P.M. train back to Boston. Riders are able to choose their own time to join or leave the tour by President’s Message by J. Jeremiah Breen 5 using the Lowell line which parallels the canal. The ride is easy for most cyclists. Annual Meeting, Officers & Directors 7 The route is pretty flat and the tour group will average about 5 mph. Steady rain can- A Book Review by Marlies Henderson of This Enchanted Land written 8 cels; helmets are required. For changes and update see www.middlesexcanal.org. It is Dr. Wayne Peters anticipated that the tour will be led by Bill Kuttner and Dick Bauer. From the Wilmington Town Crier an article on the Woburn Volcano by 11 Fall Walk: The fall walk will take place on Sunday, October 20, 2019. Participants are Capt. Larz Neilson encouraged to meet at the Middlesex Canal Museum and Visitors’ Center (71 Faulkner Street, North Billerica, MA 01862) at 1:30 P.M. Pre-registration is not required. The Tay: A Profile of Six Generations by John Ciriello 12 2½ hour walk will cover part of the Merrimack River branch of the canal in Billerica Part #5 in the Series A Social History of the Middlesex Canal a e-book 20 and Chelmsford, over about 3 miles of generally wooded terrain. Sites visited on the by Rev. Alan Seaburg tour will include the recently restored guard lock, the anchor stone for the floating A Poem by Tristan Macdonald 35 towpath that bridged the Concord River, and many stretches of the watered canal. The walk is jointly listed as a local walk of the Boston Chapter of the Appalachian Moun- Miscellany 36 tain Club and the MCA. It is anticipated that the walk will be co-led by Robert Winters 2 3 and Marlies Henderson. For the latest information please refer to the MCA website, Fall Meeting: Sunday, October 27, 2019, at 1 PM, the Middlesex Canal Association, www.middlesexcanal.org. 71 Faulkner St, Billerica, will host a talk by Robert Thorson, the author of The Boat- man: Henry David Thoreau’s River Years. His 2018 talk on Thoreau’s river years is on A Note of Appreciation from Marlies Henderson: Five years ago, Billerica House 1 of Correction inmates prepared the way for a Sunday Fall Walk, as sponsored by the video in the Internet Archive. His October 27 talk will be about the river, the Billerica Middlesex Canal Association and the Boston Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain dam and Thoreau, timely as the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wants to remove the dam as a barrier to some fish species.2 Dr. Thorson is a professor Club: Forty-four participants showed up to follow in the footsteps of Henry David 3 Thoreau who described the same riparian route — also on a Sunday! The vision- of geology at the University of Connecticut. ary wrote in his A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers about the canal: “... Suggested readings prior to the meeting in the lapse of ages, Nature will recover and ... gradually plant fit shrubs ... along its 1. The River Years, https://archive.org/details/TheBoatman050218 . borders.” You bet Nature recovered, and I even get help sprucing up the towpath and / or berm side of the canal, lest we completely lose sight of the canal. So, praise those 2. See Concord River Diadromous Fish Restoration: Feasibility Study: Final Report, inmates for their efforts — and the Sheriff who made this Community Work Project Dec 2016, by Gomez and Sullivan, Engineers (Jill Griffiths, P.E.), http://archives.lib. (CWP) program a priority! state.ma.us/handle/2452/626310 . N. B., the appendices, A - I, are separate files. Sheriff Koutoujian told me afterwards that he was glad that the Middlesex House of See also “The 1825 Iron Bolt and the Great Billerica Dam Controversy”, http://mid- Correction was able to assist the Association with this cleanup, because the Middlesex dlesexcanal.org/towpath/TowpathTopics-Sept2013color.pdf, pp. 8-10. Canal holds a special historical significance for the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office; the 3. Professor Thorson, home page, https://robertthorson.clas.uconn.edu/ principal driver in the design and construction of the Canal was Loammi Baldwin, 4. “Agriculture and Industry” by Catherine Clement, Esq. Towpath Topics, March, who also happens to be the very first appointed Middlesex County Sheriff in 1780! 1994. Sheriff Koutoujian said, “Projects where our CWP crews can help clear trails and public areas for active and passive recreation are projects I want to do more of in the Directions to Middlesex Canal Museum and Visitors’ Center future.” By Car: From Rte. 128/95 Take Route 3 toward Nashua, to Exit 28 “Treble Cove Road, North Billerica, Carl- And indeed, for the past five years, inmates from the Middlesex Sheriff Community isle”. At the end of the ramp, turn left onto Treble Cove Road in the direction of North Work Program (CWP) have made maintenance of this historic trail their regular busi- Billerica. At about ¾ mile, bear left at the fork. After another ¾ mile, at the traffic ness. This fall we celebrate the fifth anniversary of a fruitful partnership: Middlesex light, cross straight over Route 3A (Boston Road). Go about ¼ mile to a 3 way-fork; inmates get used to being ‘outside’, while preparing Middlesex Canal trails – for the take the middle road (Talbot Avenue) which will put St Andrew’s Church on your left. community to get outside! Go ¼ mile to a stop sign and bear right onto Old Elm Street. Go about ¼ mile to the falls, where Old Elm Street becomes Faulkner Street; the Museum is on your left and you can park across the street on your right, just beyond the falls. Watch out crossing the street! From I-495 Take Exit 37, North Billerica, south roughly 2 plus miles to the stop sign at Mt. Pleas- ant Street, turn right, then bear right at the Y, go 700’ and turn left into the parking lot. The Museum is across the street (Faulkner Street). By Train: The Lowell Commuter line runs between Lowell and Boston’s North Station. From the station side of the tracks at North Billerica, the Museum is a 3-minute walk down Station Street and Faulkner Street on the right side.