SHAWSHEEN AQUEDUCT, LOOKING NORTHEAST, MIDDLESEX CANAL, WILMINGTON-BILLERICA, MASSACHUSETTS OLD-TIME NEW ENGLAND d ’ Quarter/y magazine Devoted to the cffncient Buildings, Household Furnishings, Domestic A-ts, 5l4anner.s and Customs, and Minor cffntipuities of L?Wqew England Teop/e

BULLETIN OFTHE SOCIETYFOR THE PRESERVATIONOF NEW ENGLAND ANTIQUITIES

Volume LVIII, No. 4 April-June I 968 Serial No. 212

Comparison of The Blackstone and Middlesex Canals

By BRENTON H. DICKSON

HREE major canals were com- granting the Blackstone its charter. The pleted in Massachusetts in the idea of a canal connecting Boston with T first twenty-odd years of the the Merrimack River and diverting the nineteenth century : the Middlesex, that great natural resources of New Hamp- went from Boston to Lowell, or more shire away from Newburyport and into correctly, from Charlestown to Middle- Boston met with wholehearted approval sex Village in the outskirts of Lowell; the in the capital city; however, the idea of Blackstone that went from Worcester to the landlocked treasures of Worcester Providence ; and the Hampshire and County making their way to the market Hampden, or Farmington, that went by way of Rhode Island, and seeing Prov- from Northampton to New Haven. To- idence benefit from business that rightly day we will just concern ourselves with belonged to Boston, was unthinkable. the first two of these. When the Blackstone Canal finally got They were both conceived about the its charter in 1823, Bostonians dreaded same time in the early 1790’s. The more than ever the evil effects of such a Middlesex began operating in 1803 but waterway. A few months before it was the Blackstone didn’t get going until completed, the Boston Centinal issued a twenty-five years later, a delay that stern warning: “If the canal is not coun- proved disastrous. The reason for the teracted by some similar enterprise in this delay was lack of cooperation on the part town, Boston will be, in a very few years, of the Massachusetts Legislature in reduced to a fishing village.” The situation was somewhat allevi- EDITORIALNOTE: This paper was read at ated, three years after the canal went in- the first of the eighteenthseries of Three Mem- to operation, when the Boston and bers’ Afternoons, and is published here with the kind permission of the lecturer for the benefit Worcester Railroad received its charter. of those members who could not be present. The president of the House of Represen-

89 Old-Time New England tatives who signed the enacted bills was a greatest natural prosperity. I say natural gentleman by the name of Leverett Sal- because its biggest money-making days tonstall. had an unnatural impulse behind them, But we’re getting a little ahead of our- namely construction of the Boston and selves. During the first twenty years of Lowell Railroad. It has been said that the nineteenth century a number of the Middlesex Canal, “like an accusing canals were proposed to keep Boston ghost . . . seldom strays far from the from becoming commercially stagnant, Boston and Lowell Railroad to which it among them one from Boston to Worces- owes its untimely end.” Rails, ties and ter to counteract the Blackstone, an- other building materials were transported other from Boston to the Connecticut to their respective destinations on canal River to divert traffic away from the boats, and finally, the British-built loco- Farmington, and another from Boston motive traveled by boat to Lowell to be to Troy, New York, to get a share of assembled in the machine shops there. the Erie Canal business for Massachu- The Middlesex Canal operated nearly setts. It is interesting to note that the thirty-two years unharassed by railroad route surveyed for this last project is competition, the poor Blackstone, only very much the same as the route of the seven. An original investor in the Mid- Boston and Maine Railroad. The sur- dlesex Canal, by retaining his interest, veyors recognized the necessity of tun- would have recovered 75 per cent of his neling through the Berkshires. To get money; a Blackstone investor, $2.75 and over them would require 120 locks. the privilege of subscribing to stock in the These would not only consume an enor- Blackstone Canal Bank. The canal has mous quantity of water but it would take been called the “greatest financial fiasco a boat two days to get through them, in the history of Providence.” while a four-mile tunnel would only take The Blackstone was beset with other an hour and twenty minutes. The loca- difficulties that did not effect the Mid- tion they chose was where the Hoosac dlesex. For water it depended on a Tunnel was bored many years later. The source that was already earmarked for canal surveyors estimated the cost at less manufacturing. Many establishments than a million dollars; actually it cost over had sprung up along the line during the ten million, which would have been the years of delay and in order to assure an financial ruin of any canal company. All adequate water supply for the canal reser- sorts of unforeseen obstacles kept cropping voirs had to be provided. Unfortunately up, more and more money had to be the increase in supply fell far short of raised and each raising was accompanied requirements, especially as more and more by the usual legal complications. At one mills began using the water. The Middle- point some frustrated party remarked sex, on the other hand, had its own that he knew a way of finishing that millpond in North Billerica, formed by tunnel in no time-just put a group of a dam in the Concord River. There was lawyers at one end and a large fee at the no competition with industrial establish- other. ments on the sluggish Concord. For Getting back to our original subject, twenty-one miles upstream from the mill- when the Blackstone was finally com- pond the rise was only three and a half pleted the Middlesex was a well-estab- feet. According to Henry Thoreau, the lished institution and enjoying its era of only bridge ever washed away on this Blackstone and Middlesex Canals section was blown upstream by the wind. tained. The Blackstone used slack water Now compare this head of less than navigation in the river for about one two inches per mile with the Blackstone’s tenth of its distance. This involved enter- ten feet per mile and you can see why ing and leaving sixteen times. During the water-power potentials of the latter periods of low water the boats would get were early recognized and utilized. stranded on the river shoals and during Though “a very Tom Thumb of a river, periods of flood the river sections were as rivers go in America,” according to too swift to be navigated. This meant that the Technical World, the Blackstone is, clients had to wait for days or even weeks

SHAWSHEEN AQUEDUCT, MIDDLESEX CANAL, WILMINGTON- BILLERICA, MASSACHUSETTS

“the hardest working . . . the one most at a time for delivery or pickup of harnessed to the millwheels of labor in freight. Worcester warehouses bulged the United States, probably the busiest with stranded merchandise. As time went in the world.” on merchants got more and more dis- The Middlesex Canal, except for gusted with these interruptions to serv- where it crossed the Concord River in jts ice and, with the canal being closed four North Billerica reservoir, was confined or five months in winter on account of to its own ditch for its entire length. Ex- ice, they naturally sought more reliable cept for months when it was frozen over, means of transportation. uninterrupted service could be main- However, none of these difficulties 92 Old-Time New England were anticipated. When the canal stock enter it. Actually it was twenty-five feet was offered in Providence there was a higher, or an error of forty-one feet in six wild scramble for it and within three miles! hours it was oversubscribed IOO per cent. Perhaps the best thing that came out Messengers were quickly dispatched to of this original survey was the Baldwin Worcester to see if any additional stock apple. While working in Wilmington could be picked up there, but when they the surveyors noticed an unusual num- arrived they found that the Worcester ber of woodpeckers all, apparently, flying quota had also been oversubscribed. towards a certain spot. On investigation Those who were not alloted any stock they found a wild apple tree with un- little realized, at the time, how fortunate usually good fruit. Baldwin, the engi- they were! neer, did much to propagate and pro- There was no wild scramble for Mid- mote this apple. At first it was called the dlesex Canal stock. In those days Ameri- pecker apple on account of the wood- can canaling was in its infancy and the peckers. stock had a speculative flavor. But by the The directors realized that an ac- Blackstone’s time, canals had proved curate survey would be necessary before themselves to be a growing and reliable proceeding with the construction of the form of transportation and the shares a canal and they sent Baldwin to Pennsyl- promising investment. The Middlesex vania to consult an Englishman named was a pioneering enterprise and a cour- Mr. Weston who was surveying for ageous undertaking. It penetrated a canals there. Mr. Weston consented to countryside of sparse population-Med- come to Massachusetts and survey for ford, Woburn and Chelmsford, all small the Middlesex. Baldwin wrote back that villages, with Lowell nonexistant and “Mrs. Weston has more than once ex- Boston itself a town of only 20,000. The pressed a passionate desire of visiting Bos- Santee Canal in South Carolina, the only ton and has frequently told me that she one to antedate the Middlesex, was still longed to be acquainted with ladies and under construction. Pennsylvania canals, gentlemen of that metropolis. She ob- for which surveys were being made, were served that all English gentlemen and still very much on paper and the Erie ladies enjoyed themselves better in Bos- only a dream. When the route for the ton than any place on the continent. I Middlesex was first laid out, surveying daresay that in my important business this and leveling instruments were unknown is a very trifling circumstance to report in New England. Loammi Baldwin of to you-however, I declare that almost Woburn, the chief engineer, and Samuel mv only hope of securing Mr. Weston’s Thompson of the same town, spent a week a&stance . . . rests on this circumstance.” making elevations by a method Thomp- It was Mr. Weston’s levels that inspired son had devised which consisted of confidence in the feasibility of the canal. squinting along a carpenter’s level and By the time the Blackstone came making laborious calculations. His mis- along, the art of leveling and surveying takes were amazing, to say the least. For was pretty well established here. The instance, he estimated that the Concord company employed a Benjamin Wright River in Billerica was sixteen and a half who, they said, was “a skillful engineer feet lower than the Merrimack at Mid- under whose superintendence and esti- dlesex Village where the canal would mates, the middle section of that stupen- Blackstone and Middlesex Canals

dous work, the Erie Canal was con- notice that stated in part: “It is requested structed.” His big mistake, as already that the dress of the workmen be de- mentioned, was using slack water in the cent and clean, their movements active river. Experience had earlier demon- but regular, their behavior civil and re- strated to Dewitt Clinton and others that spectful; in short their general conduct this sort of thing was not practical. Per- such as shall do honor to themselves and haps it was done for the sake of economy. those concerned will consider themselves However, there was no penny-pinching honored thereby.” Once through the in construction of the locks. With one ex- locks at Middlesex Village, the passengers ception, they were all made of hand-cut disembarked and walked to Howard’s granite and there were forty-eight of Tavern for a handsome feast, and as they them. The twenty-eight locks on the walked they passed between two rows of Middlesex Canal, with the exception of workmen still “martially holding their three, were originally made of wood and tools.” they all had to be replaced with stone Over the next few years excursions after a few years. The Blackstone engi- were held on this section from time to neers undoubtedly bore this fact in mind time to console the discouraged stock- in deciding against wood. holders and to impress prominent citi- Construction of both canals was by zens. The boats were decorated “gaudier hand labor-picks, shovels and wheel- than a circus wagon” to add cheer to an barrows. It took nine years to build the otherwise drab situation. Middlesex; the Blackstone took only No such junkets were necessary on the four. Building the ‘Middlesex was a con- Blackstone. By now the technology of stant succession of trial and error; find- canal building was established and hope- ing the proper lining to make the ditch ful stockholders saw no delays other than watertight, devising a method for mak- those caused by the whims of the weather, ing hydraulic cement, etc., etc. The in- or perhaps an occasional personnel prob- genious Baldwin overcame all these ob- lem. A few months before completion stacles in the end, but they all took an the following appeared in the paper, abnormal amount of time-at least that “The unusual supply of rain descending was the opinion of the weary stockholders in continual showers, has been particu- who grew tired of assessment after as- larly unfavorable to the progress of the sessment with no prospect of any im- work. The contractors have been delayed mediate return on their money. in their operations by the fountains and In I 797, six years before the canal was streams bursting from the earth shad- completed, the management, in an effort owed by constant clouds, and poured to cheer the weary stockholders, ordered down from every hillside.” the opening of the six-mile section be- The first excursion, a ten-mile trip tween the Concord and Merrimack from Providence, took place three months Rivers. Baldwin protested violently but before the canal was opened for its entire he was overruled. The passengers em- length. Passengers embarked on the Lady barked on two horse-drawn barges. As Carrington, a very grand and beautiful they proceeded along the canal the work- vessel. She had a “palatial cabin running men marched beside them on either bank most of the length of her body,” which carrying their tools over their shoulders. was “conveniently and neatly arranged.” They had received instructions from a She was painted white and had red cur- 94 Old-Time New England tains in her windows and left Providence senger liners was the Governor Sullivan, July I, I 828, amid “a salute of artillary sometimes referred to as the General . . . seconded by the cheers of those on Sullivan. It had a carpeted cabin and up- board and the shouts of hundreds of spec- holstered seats and was considered a tators who crowded the banks and sur- model of comfort and elegance. It was rounding eminences.” There was a band towed by two horses at a trot and had of music aboard of eight or ten pieces. right of way over all other craft. The The trip was most successful. passenger on the Governor S&van was On a second excursion three days “protected by iron rules from the dangers later, a man was sitting on the railing of collision; undaunted by squalls of wind, telling a story when suddenly the boat realizing, should the craft be capsized he struck the canal bank and he went over- had nothing to do but walk ashore [he] board. After being pulled back in, all wet . . . had plenty of time for observation through, he resumed his place on the rail- and reflection. Seated in summer under a ing and said, “as I was saying,” and con- capacious awning he traveled the valley tinued with the story as if nothing had of the Mystic [where] . . . soft bits of happened. characteristic New England scenery, With the opening of the Canal the clear cut as cameos, lingered caressingly Lady Cwrington took passengers from in his vision; green meadows, fields riot- Worcester to Providence or towns along ous with blossomed clover, fragrant or- the way but it was never a successful chards and quaint old farmhouses with a competitor with the stagecoach for pas- background of low hills wooded to their senger travel. The trip took fourteen summit.” hours with sometimes an overnight stop, When the textile mills were built on either spending the night at a canal tav- the Merrimack, large quantities of coal ern or using sleeping accommodations and raw materials were shipped to them aboard the boat, while the stagecoach left from Boston and finished goods returned, at 8:oo in the morning and arrived at using canal transportation in both direc- 5:oo in the afternoon. However, the tions. But at first, cargoes were repre- boat was considered “a pleasant con- sented primarily by granite, lumber and veyance for invalids who desire to travel agricultural products from the Merri- or to take the sea air.” mack Valley and vicinity. For many The Middlesex Canal did a more suc- years, the shipyards on the Mystic River cessful passenger business. The trip to and the Navy Yard at Charlestown re- Middlesex Village took seven hours (and lied on the canal for the greater part of cost 75$) and it connected with a ferry the lumber they used in shipbuilding, to Boston on the Charlestown end and a With locks around the various falls on stage to Lowell on the upper end, that is, the Merrimack, a vast area was opened after Lowell became a place of some con- up, Plymouth, New Hampshire being the sequence. When the canal was dug there upper limit of the river navigation. was no Lowell-just a small settlement On the Blackstone Canal, cargoes known as East “Chumpsford” (trans., shipped to Worcester included such com- Chelmsford). Lowell didn’t become a modities as salt, lime, coal and lumber. great textile center until several years Soon after it opened a local paper an- later. The most pretentious of the pas- nounced that “a quantity of cherry plank Blackstone and Middlesex Canals 95 and joists was landed in this town . , . Amos Binney, its chief promoter, died the which grew in Michigan or Ohio at the mine was closed and it was reported that head of Lake Erie, from which it was the mineral “which might be made to shipped down the lake to Buffalo, thence give motion to the wheels of manufac- by the Erie Canal to Albany, from that turing . . . has been permitted to rest un- place to Providence by sloop navigation disturbed in its bed.” People who used and from Providence to this place by the the coal, the publicity notwithstanding, Blackstone Canal-a distance . . . of at were inclined to feel it vastly overrated. least 900 miles, four hundred of which One user caustically remarked that the is artificial navigation. It is thus that residual ash weighed more than the coal articles are made valuable in one section itself! of the country where otherwise there The Blackstone had not been operat- would be no market for them, and an- ing many months when boatmen dis- other section is supplied at a fair rate with covered that short hauls were the most that which it must otherwise do without profitable, especially in stretches with or buy at . . . exhorbitant prices.” fewer locks. Worcester people felt neg- Cargoes that came overland to the lected. The inhabitants, the newspaper Port of Worcester to be shipped out by said, “have derived but little benefit from canal included dairy products, agricul- the . . . canal during . . . the last fort- tural products, chairs and coal from the night, although they had hundreds of Worcester coal mine. When the canal tons of freight which they were anxious was built it was expected that this coal to get up. The reason is that all the boats would contribute substantially to profits. now on the canal can be more profitably Professor Hitchcock in his Geology of employed in doing the business of the Massachusetts said of the coal, “it will lower end of the route. We hope our be considered by posterity, if not by the citizens will take measures to have a reg- present generation, as a treasure of great ular line of boats from this place early value.” It was considered “suitable for in the spring.” furnaces where intense heat and great On the pleasanter side, there were fires are required.” It received much pub- excursion boats that took passengers on licity in the local papers. For instance, holiday jaunts. One of the better remem- “Captain Thomas has fitted up a stove bered was a picnic in Waterford where for burning it in his barroom where for the Congregational Society of that town about a week past he has not used a par- played host to the Uxbridge Congrega- ticle of any other fuel, and has had as tional Society. “So together with many handsome and as good a fire as we have from North Uxbridge they made a good- ever witnessed of either the Lehigh or ly number. They went by canal. The Schuylkil coal.” It is possible that these boat was decorated with festoons and opinions were influenced by a touch of evergreens and . . . a kind of bannerette what Captain Thomas served in his bar- . . . called Gideon’s Lamp.” The trip took room. three hours and progress was so slow that In developing the mine a shaft was many of the passengers got out and driven three hundred feet into the hill walked. At one sharp turn the boat and at one time twenty men were em- nearly upset. When they got to the picnic ployed there. However, when Colonel spot there was a scarcity of lunch. “The Old-Time New England

Uxbridge guests expected the Waterford side that the Middlesex managed to people to furnish the repast so went with- avoid-sabotage. There were constant out any food. The Waterford people disputes between boatmen and mill- evidently did not so intend their invita- owners. The millowners said that the tion, so when lunch time came the Ux- canal was using too much water; the bridge people were not invited to partake boatmen maintained, and correctly, that with them.” One of the passengers came there wouldn’t be all that water there to the rescue and bought a barrel of except for the reservoirs built by the crackers and a quantity of cheese out of canal company. As early as 1829, the which the Uxbridge people made their second year of operation, the embank- lunch. ment of a canal feeder near Millbury On the Middlesex Canal, Horn Pond was destroyed by some laborers in the in Woburn was a favorite place to go on employ of a manufacturing establishment. a holiday, being readily accessible by boat. The event received much adverse pub- Pleasure barges took passengers on scenic licity and the embarrassed millowner, trips around the lake while “Kendall’s who had ordered the work done, made Brass Band and the Brigade Band of Bos- reparation. As time went on, sabotage be- ton rendered sweet harmony and the came less and less of a transgression and crowds wandered from the groves to the millowners openly indulged in it. In or- lake and back to the canal where shots der to conserve their dwindling water of lumber, rafts and canal boats were con- supply they sometimes dumped large tinually passing through the locks.” stones into the locks by night, rendering One young lady, writing in her diary them inoperative; the boatmen retaliated about a trip to Horn Pond, mentions by threatening to burn the mills and stopping near some water lilies. Some of armed guards had to be hired to prevent the ladies expressed a desire for them and any such disaster. Daniel Webster, who happened to be Tolls on the Blackstone reached their aboard, remarked: “If I was a young peak in 1832, three years before com- man I should not let a young lady ask for pletion of the Boston and Worcester those flowers in vain.” Whereupon two Railroad. That year nearly $19,000 in gallant men “dashed into the lake and tolls was collected, rather a puny figure wading about gathered a number of when one considers that the canal cost lilies, brought them to shore and dis- $750,000. They also paid the first and tributed them at the great risk of their biggest dividend that year: $1.00. Re- health as they were obliged to wear their ceipts slumped badly with the advent of wet clothes the rest of the afternoon. the railroad and continued downward Fortunately they were attired in black during the remainder of the canal’s ex- silk or stuff pantaloons which were not istence. The last toll was collected in injured in appearance.” The diary also 1848, a year after the canal was dealt states that the young lady’s mother con- a fatal blow by the advent of the Worces- sidered it very thoughtless of Mr. Web- ter and Providence Railroad. Passengers ster to say what he did and to encourage could now make the trip in two hours the young men to run the risk of pneu- instead of fourteen by boat or nine monia. by stagecoach. Th e canal could only The Blackstone had one thorn in its operate from an hour before sunrise un- Blackstone and Middlesex Canals 97 til an hour after sunset; the railroad came this note of warning: “In a short could run at night. When the Boston time a large part of the tolls will be paid and Worcester Railroad went into oper- to another corporation.” Three years ation thirteen years earlier, night rail- later, in 1836, the canal lost its Lowell roading was not permitted except when tonnage to the railroad, but continued unavoidable. Locomotives were not to operate reasonably profitably for an- equipped with headlights. Once a train other six years, by which time the rail- got delayed outside Worcester and had road had been extended to Concord,

VIEW LOOKING SOUTH DOWN THE MIDDLESEX CANAL, SCHOOL STREET, NORTH WOBURN, MASSACHUSETTS to complete its journey after dark. The New Hampshire ; and after that tolls engineer reported that he “ran into some rapidly faded out until I 853 when the cattle at 9 P.M. and killed two of them. last one was collected. It was so dark, could not see.” When abandonment appeared inevi- Tolls on the Middlesex reached a peak table a scheme was proposed for using the in 1833. The fig ure reflected business ditch as an aqueduct to bolster Boston’s stimulated by construction of the Boston diminishing water supply. Caleb Eddy, and Lowell Railroad. That year a divi- the manager, wrote: “If the canal can- dend of $30 a share was paid but with it not put out the fire of the locomotive, it .

98 Old-Time New England

may be made to stop the ravages of that original proprietors put it, “A magnan- element in the city of Boston.” Boston imous enterprise.” wells were going dry and the water in Today portions of canal and towpath them was becoming contaminated. “One can still be seen, especially in Woburn specimen,” Eddy wrote, “which gave and Wilmington, but each year a little 3% animal and vegetable putrescent more becomes obliterated by the bull- matter, was publicly sold as a mineral dozer as it levels the ground for real water; it was believed that water having estate development. Two aqueducts, one such a remarkable fetid odor and nau- in Billerica and the other in Woburn, seous taste could be no other than that have been spared destruction. of a sulfur spring; but its medicinal pow- Parts of the Blackstone can also be ers vanished with the discovery that seen. In Pawtucket, several miles of canal the spring arose from a neighboring and towpath are being preserved as a rec- drain.” reational park. One lock still remains al- The Concord River water had been most intact-a fine example of the labor analyzed by “four of the most dis- and skill that went into hand-cut granite. tinguished and able chemistsin the coun- When the canal was abandoned the other try, all of whom agree that it is in every locks were dismantled and sold for build- respect of the requisite purity for drink- ing stones. ing and for culinary and for all other The Blackstone has been spoken of as purposes.” One of these distinguished a “magnificent enterprise.” “To the chemistsbecame even more distinguished Providence and Worcester Railroad it later: his name was Professor Webster was a sort of forerunner, hinting at the and he murdered Dr. Parkman in his grades, furnishing a path, and opening Cambridge laboratory and disposed of an avenue for the transportation of heavy the body in his incinerator. freight; . . . every town along the whole Not only would Boston benefit from line is deeply indebted to it for the present this project; also, vast tracts of meadow- growth and prosperity.” land in Wayland and Sudbury could be Had it been built twenty-five years restored, if the flatboards on the Billerica earlier and confined to its own ditch it dam were removed. This dam had been probably would have been a very lucra- enlarged during a modernization pro- tive enterprise even after the advent of gram in 1830, causing water to back up the railroad. By controlling water rights over the Sudbury meadows and ruin, ac- on the river and selling power to the cording to one authority, I 0,000 acres of mills it could have continued prosperous the most valuable meadowland in the even though the form of transportation it state. This figure increased substantially offered had become outmoded. over the years with silting from the slug- Upon completion of the Providence gish stream. Considerable litigation had and Worcester Railroad a toast was brought no benefit to the proprietors of given at a meeting in Worcester, hinting the Sudbury meadows asthere was a clause at the relative importance of the two in the Middlesex Canal charter that methods of transportation: “The two couldn’t be surmounted. When the aque- unions between Worcester and Provi- duct proposition failed the canal faced dence. The first was as weak as water, abandonment. It had been, as one of its the last as strong as iron.”