Contents Articles Pawtucket Canal 1 Middlesex Canal 2 Lowell Power Canal System and Pawtucket Gatehouse 4 Merrimack Canal 6 References Article Sources and Contributors 7 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 8 Article Licenses License 9 Pawtucket Canal 1 Pawtucket Canal The Pawtucket Canal was finished in 1796. It was built to circumvent the Pawtucket Falls of the Merrimack River in East Chelmsford, Massachusetts (now Lowell, Massachusetts). It is a major component of the → Lowell canal system. The Pawtucket Falls are a mile long series of falls and rapids in which the Merrimack River drops 32 feet. The falls hampered the shipment of inland goods, mostly lumber, to the mouth of the Merrimack and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Newburyport was then one of the largest shipbuilding centers in New England, Pawtucket Canal in context and a steady supply of wood from New Hampshire was critical to its industry. The original canal was built by wealthy Boston merchants who formed a limited liability corporation called the Proprietors of Locks and Canals, one of the first of its kind in the United States. However, within a decade of its construction the → Middlesex Canal was completed, connecting the Merrimack directly with Boston, Massachusetts. Bringing goods directly to Boston was more advantageous for merchants, and the Pawtucket Canal fell out of favor for inland transport. The investors in the Boston Manufacturing Company having successfully built upon Francis Cabot Lowell and Paul Moody's work in builing a successfully integrated cotton mill at Waltham, Massachusetts on the Charles River were looking for a site that offered more waterpower and the Pawtucket Falls offered what they needed. In 1821 they bought the Proprietors of Locks and Canals and with it the water rights of the Merrimack River upstream from the Pawtucket Falls. The Pawtucket Canal was deepened to become a power canal, and the first of 5.6 miles of canals in the soon to be named City of Lowell, Massachusetts. The first canal built off the Pawtucket Canal was the Merrimack Canal, which powered the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, thus starting the Lowell experiment, and the first planned industrial city in the United States. The canal is operated today by Boott Hydro, LLC. Middlesex Canal 2 Middlesex Canal The Middlesex Canal was a 27 mile (44 km) barge canal connecting the Merrimack River with the port of Boston. When operational it was 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, and 3 feet (0.9 m) deep, with 20 locks, each 80 feet (24 m) long and between 10 and 11 feet (3.0 and 3.4 m) wide. It also had 8 aqueducts. The canal was chartered on June 22, 1793 with a signature by Governor John Hancock, and was built between 1795 and 1803 under the engineering guidance of Loammi Baldwin, with the aim of opening up the vast interior of New England to merchant capital. In 1795 ground was broken at North Billerica Mills and Shawsheen River Aqueduct, Middlesex Canal, Billerica/Wilmington the first boat operated on April 22, 1802. Town Line, Massachusetts. The opening of the canal ended the commercial viability of the port of Newburyport, Massachusetts, the outlet of the Merrimack River, since all trade from the Merrimack Valley in New Hampshire now went via the canal to Boston, rather than through the sometimes difficult to navigate river.[2] The canal ran from Middlesex Village in East Chelmsford, Massachusetts, later Lowell, through several Middlesex County towns. At first it terminated in Medford, but was later extended to Charlestown, Massachusetts with a branch near Medford Center to the Mystic River.[1] A series of other canals along the Merrimack allowed freight to be transported as far inland as Concord, New Hampshire. The water source Map of the Middlesex Canal, 1801, before it was extended south of for the canal was the Concord River at North Billerica. [1] Medford. This was also the highest point of the canal, and is the present location of the Middlesex Canal Association's museum. Freight boats required 18 hours from Boston up to Lowell, and 12 hours down, thus averaging 2.5 miles per hour; passenger boats were faster, at 12 and 8 hours, respectively (4 miles per hour). A roundtrip between Boston and Concord, New Hampshire usually took 7-10 days. The canal was one of the main thoroughfares in New England until the advent of the railroad. In fact, the Boston and Lowell Railroad (now a part of the MBTA Commuter Rail system) was built using the plans from the original surveys for the canal. Portions of the line follow the canal route closely, and the canal was used to transport the construction materials for the railroad. The canal was no longer economically viable after the introduction of railroad competition, and the company went bankrupt in 1851. The Middlesex Turnpike, incorporated 1805, also contributed to its downfall. The proprietors proposed to convert it into an aqueduct to bring drinking water to Boston, but this effort was unsuccessful. Parts of the canal bed were covered by roads in the 20th century, including the Mystic Valley Parkway in portions of Middlesex Canal 3 Medford and Winchester. Though significant portions of the Middlesex Canal are still visible, urban and suburban sprawl is quickly overcoming many of the remains. The Middlesex Canal Association has made an effort to erect markers along much of the canal's path. Prominent portions of the canal that are still visible include water-filled portions near Baldwin House (near I-95 in Woburn), and dry sections in Winchester, most notably a section at the Mystic Lakes where an aqueduct was situated. A particularly fine segment of the canal; most Map of lower stretch of Middlesex Canal, 1852. has reverted to nature or vanished. External links • Middlesex Canal Association [3] • History of Middlesex Canal, with links [4] • New England Magazine article, January 1898 [5] • Early Canal Transportation: The Boats of the Middlesex Canal [6] • Paintings: Middlesex Canal by Joseph Payro 1930s [7] • Report of the Joint Special Committee Upon the Subject of the Flowage of Meadows on the Concord and Sudbury Rivers [8], by Massachusetts, General Court, published 1860. This is how the Middlesex Canal Corporation was dissolved. Middlesex Canal 4 References [1] http:/ / www. medfordhistorical. org/ middlesexcanal. php [2] Muir, Diana, Reflections in Bullough's Pond, University Press of New England, p.112 [3] http:/ / www. middlesexcanal. org/ [4] http:/ / www. geocities. com/ Athens/ Troy/ 6034/ [5] http:/ / cdl. library. cornell. edu/ cgi-bin/ moa/ pageviewer?coll=moa& root=/ moa/ newe/ newe0023/ & tif=00527. TIF& view=50& frames=1 [6] http:/ / library. uml. edu/ clh/ MC/ Mc. Html [7] http:/ / library. uml. edu/ clh/ MidCan. Html [8] http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=2MQOAAAAYAAJ& pg=PA84& source=gbs_toc_r& cad=0_0#PPR1,M1 Lowell Power Canal System and Pawtucket Gatehouse Main Article History of Lowell, Massachusetts The Lowell Power Canal System is the largest power canal system in the United States, at 5.6 miles in length. The system's estimated output is 10,000 horsepower, operating six major canals on two levels, controlled by numerous gates. The system was begun in the 1790s, beginning its life as a transportation canal called the → Pawtucket Canal, which was constructed to get logs from New Hampshire down the Merrimack River to shipbuilding centers at Newburyport, Massachusetts, bypassing the 30-plus foot drop of the Pawtucket Falls. Lowell's Canal System In the early 1820s, Associates of the recently-deceased Francis Cabot Lowell bought up the old Pawtucket Canal in what was then East Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Within a few years, the new industrial center that became Lowell was using canals feeding off of a widened and deepened Pawtucket Canal as a direct power source for their textile mills. The first of these canals was the → Merrimack Canal, which powered the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. The repurposing of the Proprietors of Locks and Canals allowed the Associates to sell water power to other companies, starting with the Hamilton Canal, leading to the explosive growth of the town, and then shortly thereafter, city, of Lowell. Lowell Power Canal System and Pawtucket Gatehouse 5 By the late 1840s, Lowell's canal system was producing as much power as possible. However, the Chief Engineer of Locks and Canals, an Englishman by the name of James B. Francis divised the Northern Canal and the Moody Street Feeder, to increase the capacity of, and availability of water to various parts of, the whole system. The Pawtucket Gatehouse was constructed to control flow from behind the Pawtucket Dam into the Northern Canal. The dam itself, which was built twenty years earlier, was lengthened at this time, diverting the entire Merrimack (during periods of lower flow) into the two Pawtucket Gatehouse, from the above the falls side canal system entrances above it. It is a stone dam topped with wooden flashboards - a system still used on this dam today. The level of the water is regulated by the flashboards and the metal pins that hold them back. When there is too much water going over the top of the dam, the pins bend backwards, releasing the boards, and the outflow of the dam is increased. The Gatehouse contains ten wooden gates that control the flow of the Merrimack into the canal. Originally, they were opened by a Francis Turbine, also an invention of James B. Today, the Gatehouse is controlled electrically and remotely by Boott Hydroelectric, who is partially a continuation of the Proprietors of Locks and Canals, and who operates a 24 Megawatt hydroplant on the Northern Canal. The Canal System and the Gatehouse became Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks in 1985 and are part of Lowell National Historical Park.