After posting several times about Colonel Loammi Baldwin and Count Rumford AKA Benjamin Thompson of Woburn, Massachusetts, I was incredibly
curious to learn more about the Middlesex Canal. If you remember the post with the photo of
Loammi Baldwin, it is located right across the street from the remains of the
canal in Woburn. We went over to look at
the canal and to read the signs, and it was not an impressive sight since it
looked like a barely visible ditch.
However, the historical markers described a great canal system that ran
from the current city of Lowell to downtown Boston. I wanted to learn more!
After Googling the Middlesex Canal, and reading more about
it in the History of Woburn, I learned that there was a Middlesex Canal Museum
in North Billerica. We spent a pleasant
afternoon there, and picked the brain of the volunteer on staff. He told me much information about how Loammi
Baldwin was one of the original proprietors of the canal in 1793, and invested
in the new transportation system which brought goods and people from the
Merrimack River (Northern Middlesex County and New Hampshire) right to Dock
Square in downtown Boston.
The canal was laid out from the Merrimack River in
Chelmsford in 1794 and arrived at the Charles River next to Boston in
1803. It was dug by hand by local workers. Eventually it went right through downtown
Boston to Dock Square near today’s Quincy Market, where goods could be loaded
onto seagoing ships, or sold and traded in the city. Much of the canal is now invisible,
especially in the urban areas closer to Boston.
But the canal can still be seen in northern Middlesex County, and is even
still navigable in many places. Stonework bridges, aqueducts and other
features such as locks are visible, too.
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| Loammi Baldwin was also the treasurer of the state of Massachusetts after the Revolutionary War. You can see his signature on this $20 bill from 1786 at the Middlesex Canal Museum in North Billerica, Massachusetts |
If your ancestors lived in New Hampshire, Middlesex County or Boston during the period between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, their lives would have been greatly changed by the building of the canal. It brought great prosperity to the region, and it changed the way people traded and moved goods in New England. The success of the Middlesex canal influenced other canals in the new United States, including the Erie Canal and the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) canal near Washington, DC.
The rise of the age of rail and steam brought an end to the profitability of the Middlesex Canal, but in its short life it made many of the proprietors wealthy men. Life along the canal was busy, with stations for travelers and goods, taverns, inns and other facilities that are mostly now gone. The few that are left are often not recognized as part of a great transportation system that once existed in this area. It takes a map, a keen eye and some research to follow the trail of the canal.
The rise of the age of rail and steam brought an end to the profitability of the Middlesex Canal, but in its short life it made many of the proprietors wealthy men. Life along the canal was busy, with stations for travelers and goods, taverns, inns and other facilities that are mostly now gone. The few that are left are often not recognized as part of a great transportation system that once existed in this area. It takes a map, a keen eye and some research to follow the trail of the canal.
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| This mural by Thomas Dahill at the Middlesex Canal Museum is also an illustration in the book Life on the Middlesex Canal |
There are bike tours, walking tours and historical tours offered year round of the old Middlesex Canal. While we were visiting the Baldwin Apple monument, one of the bike trails tours appeared, and the participants were
quite enthusiastic about finding the hidden history of a National Treasure
right in their own backyards!
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| Some people bike the canal trail, we rode nearby with the little red convertible! This photo is at the Baldwin Apple memorial in Wilmington, Massachusetts, not far from the canal |
For more information:
Middlesex Canal Association website www.middlesexcanal.org
Life on the Middlesex Canal by Alan Seaburg, Cambridge, MA:
Miniver Press, 2009
The Old Middlesex Canal by Mary Stetson Clarke, Easton, PA: Center for Canal History and Technology, 1974
The Incredible Ditch: A Bicentennial History of the Middlesex Canal,
by Carl Seaburg, Alan Seaburg and Tom Dahill, Cambridge, MA: Miniver Press,
1997
The History of Woburn, Middlesex County, Mass., by Samuel
Sewall, Boston, MA: Wiggin and Lunt Publishers, 1868. (available to read or download online at
Google Book Search)
My blog post from 14 October 2013 on "Colonel Loammi Baldwin"
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So interesting, as usual :)
ReplyDeleteLove that mural.
ReplyDelete