Talk:Middlesex Canal

Route
I wonder why it wasn't integrated with the Mystic River and Mystic Lakes? -- Beland (talk) 04:21, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The commercial viability of the Merrimack
I got some news for you. Flash. The Merrimack was never used for any commercial viability to the interior. The presence of falls and rapids at every urban point upstream totally put that idea out of anyone's mind. I have NO idea what you are talking about, editor. Newburyport was always an Atlantic port. Its chief market was the Atlantic trade and its chief business the building of ocean-going Atlantic ships. At the very period YOU say it went into commercial decline it had not yet reached its peak. Hundreds of privateers, merchantmen, fishing vessels, whaling vessels and transport vessels built in Newburyport were plying the coastal waters and headed off to Africa. Go to Commons, take a look at the pictures of Newburyport Harbor! Point of fact, this is a theoretical article, a lot of which you made up yourself. The only trouble is, you have no idea of the area. Why don't you GO to Lowell, gaze at the rapids, tell us then exactly how much river traffic got through! No, it was never a major route, except maybe to one famous philosopher who used a canoe. He counts for exactly nothing, just like all the other philosophers. The main use for the swift waters was water power, don't you know? Start at Lawrence, go up to Lowell, then on to Manchester and Concord. What do you see there? Mills, all run by water power. Thoreau is actually putting us on here. In order to get up the river he had to pass by those very mills and go through the Lowell sewer system and port his canoe around those early power stations. He makes you think it was some kind of wilderness. For a while canals were used for inland heavy transport. There's one going right through the center of Peabody, MA. It looks terrible, abandoned, overgrown, full of junk and trash. They were only useful for a decade or so, then railroads took their place. I would rate their economic impact at zero, just like the overland stagecoaches. I would say, do your theorizing somewhere else; this is for information and authoritative opinions. Start working from references; you'll do better. I've a good mind to take on this article myself, but right now I don't feel like it.Dave (talk) 04:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Woah! I don't know who you're addressing, but you're not entirely correct for someone being so cocky.  Thoreau NEVER went through downtown Lowell.  The Middlesex Canal bypassed the city completely in those days.  Lowell annexed Middlesex Village in the 1870s, putting the canal path into the city's outskirts.  Thoreau left the Concord River at North Billerica and took the Canal to the Merrimack River at Middlesex Village, Chelmsford.  Prior to that, by the 1790s, Lowell already had a different canal, the Pawtucket Canal, that DID bypass the Pawtucket Falls and did eventually power Lowell's downtown mills.  If you have citations about Newburyport remaining an important port after 1820 or so, provide them.  I can easily find citations that say the Middlesex Canal redirected much of the lumber traffic to Charlestown and away from Newburyport - lumber traffic that the Pawtucket Canal only a few years later was commissioned to get to Newburyport.  Had that canal not been a failure because it was surpassed by the Middlesex Canal, there would be no city of Lowell today.  Thanks, CSZero (talk) 03:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Which state
It is mentioned that a canal was planed between Boston and Enfield, however there is a town of Enfield in Connecticut and one in New Hampshire, which one is it? Dmdogs900 (talk) 02:09, 4 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Almost certainly Enfield, Connecticut, which is on the Connecticut River. Enfield, New Hampshire does not abut or include any major navigable waterways.  Magic ♪piano 17:52, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Enfield NH is close to the Connecticut River, though not bordering. Dmdogs900 (talk) 22:22, 11 January 2020 (UTC)