the subscription by the state of fifty of the remaining one hundred and twenty-eight unsubscribed shares and the payment of $50 on each, with the assurance that the further calls would probably not amount to more than $250 per share. A committee reported favorably; the legislature was again interested, but it was cautious; and the utmost it would do was "to enable such towns as, from a spirit of liberality and enterprise, shall have a wish to become stockholders in said company, to tax themselves for the purpose." Failing here, and despite New York's hearty support, the enterprise was soon abandoned, some $100,000 having been sunk in vain.2

In New York, therefore, as in Pennsylvania, the principal efforts at improving navigation came to little. The projects were premature, poorly planned, inadequately financed, ill-managed, foredoomed to failure.

Among the important New England projects the improvement of the navigation of the Connecticut ranked high. Unlike the southern predecessors, the New Englanders did not attempt to accomplish the whole task by a single company. In all some seven companies were incorporated by the end of 1800 for removing obstacles, deepening the channel, or building short lock canals at various points on the river.

The first company to begin and complete its project was incorporated in February, 1792, by Massachusetts, as the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Connecticut River, to overcome the principal obstructions to navigation in Massachusetts. The company was composed largely of leading men in the Connecticut valley, including John Worthington and Jonathan Dwight of Springfield, John Williams of Deerfield, and Benjamin Prescott, a Northampton engineer. Christopher Colles of New York was secured to make the preliminary surveys, in 1792, at South Hadley and at Montague. With the assistance of Stephen Higginson of Boston, about one-fourth of the stock was sold to four Amsterdam firms in 1793, and some

1 Vt. Council Recs., iv, 450-452, quoting Schuyler's letter of Oct. 10, 1796, committee report, and act. 2 Watson, Western Canal, 94.

five hundred and four shares were subscribed. The necessary lands were purchased in this year, and on April 20, 1793, construction was begun at South Hadley under Prescott's direction. The work here was dedicated in the autumn of 1794 and opened for traffic the following spring. In 1795 over $3000 was collected in tolls. Nearly $200,000 was expended.

Work was begun on the canal on the upper river, at Montague Falls, in 1793. In February, 1794, however, this work was handed over to a separate company comprising most of the earlier shareholders except the Dutch capitalists, who may have insisted on the division. The Montague section of the canal was completed in 1794, and the section at Millers Falls, after considerable delay, in 1800. Four hundred and forty-one shares were issued, and at least $90,000 seems to have been spent here, perhaps as much as $150,000. The first year's tolls amounted to nearly $3800.

The early years of these canals were not highly profitable. Expenses had been greater than anticipated, while receipts proved smaller. Litigation following the erection of the first dam and its reconstruction for sanitary reasons was disconcerting. The Dutch investors, after paying in $153 in assessments, refused to pay more, and their stock was sold at auction for $80 per share (the last in 1804). Other stockholders also sold out. Eventually, however, the tolls returned the patient stockholders gratifying dividends. The upper company dividends in 1806-20 averaged 4 per cent. In 1820 its stock sold at $200, and that of the lower at $280.1

Late in 1791 Col. Enoch Hale, who in 1785 had built the first bridge over the Connecticut, at Bellows Falls, Vt., planned and began work on a canal to carry boats around these falls.2 He may have been acting for a group of associates headed by

1 W. De Loss Love, "The Navigation of the Conn. River," in Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc., New Series, xv, 406-412; Edwin M. Bacon, The Connecticut River and the Valley of the Connecticut . . . (New York, 1906), 311-314; Thompson, History of Greenfield, i, 293, 518; Mason A. Green, Springfield, 1636–1886 (Springfield, 1888), 351-352; Boston Gazette, Feb. 6, 1792; Columbian Centinel, Oct. 15, 1796; Pitkin, Statistical View (1835), 563; Report of Inland Waterways Com., 205; Dwight, Travels, i, 321-324, ii, 352-353.

2 Mass. Magazine, iii, 783 (December, 1791).

Gen. Lewis R. Morris of Springfield, Vt., and Dr. William Page of Charlestown, N. H., who had on October 31 secured an act from Vermont providing for their incorporation as the company for rendering Connecticut river navigable by Bellows falls, at Rockingham, with a perpetual exclusive privilege. New York capitalists also were interested in this venture.' Nothing material was accomplished, however, and late in 1792 a new charter was granted the associates in Vermont, and the equivalent of one was secured from New Hampshire as well.2 The earlier act had required completion within four years, or forfeiture unless every exertion was being used to complete it; the second act called for completion by Nov. 1, 1803. Only eighteen shares were issued, and most of the capital actually employed was furnished by a wealthy Londoner, Hodgson Atkinson. Progress was slow, partly because of the rock formation, though the engineering problem was not great. Expenses proved greater than the original estimate, and the legislature granted requests for increases in tolls in October, 1795, and November, 1798. The total cost came to over $100,000. The canal, less than half a mile in length, with seven or eight locks, was probably opened in 1798 and was in full operation in the fall of 1802. In 1826 the property was valued at $70,000. It continued to be used till 1865, but as a business venture proved a disappointment.3

In June, 1792, the proprietors of the White River Falls Bridge were chartered by New Hampshire with authority to lock the falls and cut canals to improve the navigation of the Connecticut "between the Mouth of Mink brook in Hanover and the Eddy below the lower bar of White River falls in Lebanon." Vermont's tardy assent was given Oct. 2, 1795. The bridge was built; nothing, however, was done on locks and falls until after 1810, and then by a new company.*

1 See Essay II, 277, 326.

2 Vt. Council Recs., iv, 448; N. H. State Papers, xxii, 622, 683.

Bacon, Connecticut River, 311, 314; Thompson, History of Greenfield, i, 518; Vt. Laws (ed. 1798), 80-86; Vt. Session Laws, Nov. 7, 1798, pp. 116-117; Love, Conn. River Nav., 413; Report of Inland Waterways Com. (1908), 59; Dwight, Travels, ii, 94-95.

N. H. MSS. Laws, vi, 541 (Index, 580); Vt. Session Laws, Oct. 2, 1795; Lord, Dartmouth College, 631-632, 654-655; Love, Conn. River Nav., 414.

The Company for rendering Connecticut River navigable by Water Queche Falls secured charters from Vermont in October, 1794, and from New Hampshire nearly two years later. Eventually some $60,000 was expended here, and a short, narrow canal put in operation. In 1826 the works were valued at $26,000 and were not regarded as being in satisfactory condition.1

The Union Company was incorporated in October, 1800, to make a six-foot channel between Hartford and Middletown, Conn., where sandbars interfered materially with trade. The work was sufficiently completed by March, 1806, to justify the company in taking tolls. By this time, however, the competition of the turnpike roads was causing a diminution of the river traffic, which reached its high point in 1805; and while its works were somewhat used, the company did not prosper. Up to 1835 it had expended $45,000. It died quietly at the expiration of its charter in 1866.2

In May, 1792, an association was formed in Newburyport to render the Merrimac River navigable to the New Hampshire line, and on June 25 the legislature chartered The proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Merrimack River for this purpose. The company was duly organized, but without great financial strength. In October, 1794, they issued "To the Inhabitants of the Towns bordering on or near the River Merrimack" a broadside calling for voluntary subscriptions to build the works." The newspapers of 1793 to 1796 indicate the levy of several assessments of $4, $5, $8, and $9 on the proprietors, and there were doubtless others amounting in all to about $100 on each of the five hundred shares. The most that was accomplished was the opening of a short channel Oct. 18, 1796, to let lumber

1 Vt. Session Laws, 26-33; N. H. MS. Laws, x, 213 (Index, 570); Love, Conn. River Nav., 413-414; Preliminary Report of Inland Waterways Com., 205. 2 Love, Conn. River Nav., 398-400. Timothy Dwight (Travels, i, 236) reports it as having a capital of $80,000. The company's manuscript records are in the Connecticut Historical Society library.

3 Mass. Magazine, iv, 342 (May, 1792).

Priv. and Spec. Stats., i, 382; Columbian Centinel, June 23, 1792.

5 Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., New Series, xi, 514 (April, 1897).

• Columbian Centinel, June 19, 1793, Aug. 23, 1794, May 27, Sept. 19, 1795, Oct. 8, Dec. 3, 21, 1796.

and firewood come around Pawtucket Falls, leading into the Concord River, thence into the Merrimac at Lowell, at a cost of perhaps $50,000. On this construction, despite the Middlesex Canal competition, dividends averaging around 3 per cent were secured up to 1820. Thereafter the canal was relied upon to furnish water power for the rising manufacturers of the town, and as such it has continued in existence.1

The Middlesex Canal was an important project born of the speculative year 1792.2 The object of this enterprise was to tap the timber lands of New Hampshire, to furnish an outlet for the agricultural products of much of Massachusetts as well as New Hampshire and Vermont, and to make possible the economic utilization of the water powers of those states. Preliminary surveys were made by Samuel Thompson in the summer of 1792, which, though they proved later to be exceedingly inaccurate on a vital matter of levels, convinced the projectors of the practicability of a canal to connect the Merrimac River at Chelmsford (now Lowell) with the Mystic at Medford. A meeting was held early in 1793, attended chiefly by residents of Medford, but also by a few other men who became of more importance to the enterprise. Such were Loammi Baldwin of Woburn, sheriff of Middlesex County, and James Sullivan of Boston, who later built the Boston aqueduct and was now prominent in the West Boston Bridge Company and attorneygeneral of the state. A committee appointed by this meeting had little difficulty in securing a charter from the General Court, approved June 22, 1793.3

The first board of thirteen was designated in the charter, and from it Sullivan was soon elected president and Baldwin vicepresident. These two supplied the initiative, influence, and persistence requisite for the arduous task of building the canal.

1 Columbian Centinel, Oct. 8, 1796; Ringwalt, Amer. Transp. Systems, 41; Drake, Hist. of Middlesex County, i, 190, 376, ii, 54; Hurd, Hist. of Middlesex County, ii, 5; Lyford, Hist. of Concord, ii, 834. The Report of the Inland Waterways Commission says the canal was abandoned in 1850.

2 For this account the writer is largely indebted to one of his students, Mr. W. R. Harper, A. B. (Harvard), 1916, who has examined a large part of the manuscript and pamphlet material relating to the canal.

Priv. and Spec. Stats., i, 465-470