Completed in 1796, the Pawtucket Canal was originally built as a transportation canal to circumvent the Pawtucket Falls of the

Merrimack River The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an occasional earlier spelling) is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into M ...

in East

Chelmsford, Massachusetts Chelmsford () is a town in Massachusetts that was established in 1655. It is located northwest of Boston. The Chelmsford militia played a role in the American Revolution at the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill. ...

. In the early 1820s it became a major component of the Lowell power canal system. with the founding of the textile industry at what became Lowell.ASME Landmark report
The Pawtucket Falls are a mile long series of falls and rapids over which the

drops 32 feet. The falls hampered the shipment of inland goods, mostly

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

, to the mouth of the Merrimack and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Newburyport was then one of the largest

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befo ...

centers in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

, and a steady supply of

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

from

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

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 The Proprietors of Locks and Canals on Merrimack River is a limited liability corporation founded on June 27, 1792, making it one of the oldest corporations in the United States. Its named incorporators were Dudley Atkins Tyng, William Coombs, Jose ...

, one of the first of its kind in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. However, within a decade of its construction the

Middlesex Canal The Middlesex Canal was a 27-mile (44-kilometer) 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 ...

was completed, connecting the Merrimack directly with

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

. 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 Francis Cabot Lowell (April 7, 1775 – August 10, 1817) was an American businessman for whom the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, is named. He was instrumental in bringing the Industrial Revolution to the United States. Early life Francis Cabot ...

and Paul Moody's work in building a successfully integrated cotton mill at Waltham, Massachusetts on the

Charles River The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles b ...

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.

References

External links

* * * * {{coord, 42, 38, 39, N, 71, 18, 21, W, display=title Canals in Lowell, Massachusetts Canals in Massachusetts Canals opened in 1821 Historic American Engineering Record in Massachusetts

See also

References

External links