Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/17

Rh FREDERICK G. STARK AND THE MERRIMACK RIVER CANALS.

GENERAL GEORGE STARK.

The canals of the Merrimack river had their day and active existence in the first half of the present century. They have been referred to as the earliest step towards a solution of the problem of cheap transportation between Boston and the northern country; but perhaps they may more properly be classed as the second step in that direction, the turnpikes having been first in the field. James Sullivan and his associates, the original projectors of this canal system, undoubtedly had in mind not only to connect Boston with the Merrimack river country, but also to extend their canals from the Merrimack to the Connecticut river, and from the Connecticut to Lake Champlain and through its outlet to the St. Lawrence, thus bringing Boston into inland water communication with Montreal and the Lower Canadas. The project was too vast and the physical obstacles too formidable to admit of full consummation, and their labors resulted only in uniting by navigable waters the capitals of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, covering a distance by river and canal of about eighty-five miles.

The Middlesex canal, twenty-seven miles in length from Boston to the Merrimack river, at what is now known as Middlesex Village, about two miles above Lowell, was the first constructed. The work on this canal was commenced in 1794, and the canal was completed and opened for public use in 1803. A very complete history of the Middlesex canal, by Lorin L. Dame, A. M., was published in the February (1885) number of the.

Following the construction of the Middlesex canal came the requisite works to render the Merrimack river navigable from the head of the Middlesex to Concord, N. H., being a series of dams, locks, and short canals to overcome the natural rapids and falls of the river. The first of these works was a lock and short canal at Wicasee falls, three miles above the head of the Middlesex, at what is now known as Tyng's island. No fall is now perceptible at that point, the Lowell dam having flowed it out. The second work, fifteen miles further up the river, at Cromwell's falls, consisted of a dam and single lock. Then came dams and single locks at Moor's, Coos. Goff's, Griffin's, and Merrill's falls. About a mile above Merrill's falls were the lower locks of the Amoskeag — a canal next in importance to the Middlesex. It was only about one mile in length, but surmounted by works of very considerable magnitude, the great fall of between fifty and sixty feet, that now furnishes the water power for the manufactories of Manchester. Its construction was first undertaken by Samuel Blodgett early as 1794, but it was not completed until 1807.

Eight miles above Amoskeag the locks and short canal of Hooksett overcame a fall of some seventeen feet: and six miles further on the Bow locks and canal afforded the final lift of twenty-seven feet, to the level of the