Knox Between Dams

The last full week of October provided me four opportunities for getting out on the water: The Nashua River on Monday; the Sudbury River on both Wednesday and Friday; and the Assabet River on Sunday.  

From the Bill Ashe boat launch in Devens I paddled down the Nashua River to Ice House Dam in Ayer, MA...

...where I walked the portage to get a look at the amount of flow going over...

From Little Farms Rd in Framingham, MA I launched into the Sudbury River and headed around the old oxbow...

...and later paid a visit to Stone's Bridge...

...where I landed so as to get a look at the historical marker at the bridge's east end...

I was curious to see it following my visit to Waltham the previous week when I passed the Knox Trail marker that stands in front of where I attended the Nathaniel P. Banks elementary school.  As a youngster I was intrigued by Knox and his men having transported heavy artillery from Fort Ticonderoga in New York some 250 miles to Cambridge, MA passing my school along the way. Because of him being mentioned as a general, I'd always pictured him as an older fellow.  Now, all these years later, I learn that he in fact was only 25 years old and had no military title at the time he did the deed.  For those unfamiliar with Mr. Knox it was he who volunteered to bring 59 pieces of heavy artillery captured in 1775 at Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain to just outside of Boston where it was ultimately used by General Washington to break the British occupation of the city.  Once the British saw those guns atop Dorchester Heights they boarded their ships and sailed away.  One hundred and fifty years later, in 1926, the states of New York and Massachusetts decided to commemorate the trail the Knox Artillery Train followed by placing 58 historical markers at intervals along the route he's believed to have taken. Most of the markers have the same text and a bas relief sculpture such as the two pictured below which I visited on my way to Framingham on Friday morning. The first was in Wayland, MA at the intersection of Routes 27 and 126...

...and the second at Framingham Center...

These markers are immediately east and west of the Stone's Bridge marker and, unlike it, they are identical and the same as 54 other markers.  So, I guess the question is "how accurate is the marker at Stone's Bridge?"

Did the Knox Artillery Train cross the Sudbury River there and if not, then where?

In trying to get answers I learned that the artillery actually stayed in Framingham for some extended period of time until decisions could be made as to where it could be best deployed.  According to Framinghamhistory.org "...from Marlborough, the cannon were transported down Nixon Road to Edmands Road and then Grove Street to be concealed in the Pike Row neighborhood (including Belnap Road) on January 24, 1776.  The bulk of the artillery remained in Framingham possibly for weeks." 

 
I launched into the Sudbury River at Kellogg Road which is less than a mile south of the aforementioned Pike Row neighborhood and headed upriver...

The Central Street bridge near the boat launch is a possible crossing place Knox might have used and is only a short distance from where the artillery was stored in the Pike Row neighborhood.

Heading upriver I passed under the Main Street Bridge which is another possible river crossing location for Knox...

The Main Street bridge reminds me of the Danforth Bridge in nearby Saxonville.  However, unlike the Danforth Bridge, the Main St. bridge still carries vehicular traffic.

Upriver progress ended at a boom beneath the Union Ave Bridge (another possible crossing location)...

I'm not sure as to what purpose (other than stopping river navigation) the boom serves.

Turned about and paddled downriver alongside the Mass Pike, did a short portage around the low-head Fiddlers Green Dam at Fenwick Street and passed under the Mass Pike to where the river widens...

...as it approaches the end of the line at the old Roxbury Carpet mill dam in Saxonville...

As to where Knox and his train of artillery crossed the Sudbury River I guess the jury's still out.  You'd think such a sight would be remembered by folks.  Knox himself, in a letter to his wife, wrote "We shall cut no small figure going thro' the country with our Cannon Mortars etc. drawn by eighty Yoke oxen!!"    

Closed out the week and most likely the month with a Sunday morning paddle on the Assabet River in Concord from a now fully exposed Egg Rock inscription...

...upriver to Main Street in West Concord...

Thinking again of 1775, some folks believe it was at this spot that the Sudbury Minutemen crossed the Assabet River on April 19, 1775 on their way to Barrett's Farm in Concord.

Trash from Monday on the Nashua included 61 miniatures (aka nips)...

Trash from the Sudbury on Wednesday included 13 miniatures...

Trash from the Sudbury on Friday included 14 miniatures...

Trash from the Assabet on Sunday included an empty bag of industrial strength ice melt...

...and not much else.
 

Oddest find of the week was this plastic bottle with a small dead snake inside...

...found in the Nashua River on Monday.

Thinking about all the water that's gone over the dam since the winter of 1775/76.

October Settles In

 

My mid-October paddling week included visits to the Assabet River in Stow, MA...

...the Charles River in Waltham, MA...

...and the Concord River in Concord, MA...

Monday's paddle on the Assabet brought me from Magazu's Landing upriver to Gleasondale where the Route 62 Bridge project is wrapping up with two-way vehicle traffic now restored...

Along the way a side trip was made up Fort Meadow Brook (after a short portage) to the ruins of the Central Mass Railroad trestle where a 115,000 volt underground transmission line is being installed...

The crane doing the heavy lifting as seen from a distance...

The transmission line will run from Hudson to Sudbury and when completed will allow for the Central Mass right-of-way to become a rail trail connecting the Assabet and Bruce Freeman Rail Trails.  Will look forward to biking this stretch in the future.

Back in September 2011 the trestle was intact and rails and crossties were still in place...

Also on the Assabet a bald eagle and a hawk came eye to eye...

...with the hawk deciding to relocate, leaving the often seen dark-eyed eagle to reign supreme... 

Back at the takeout a blue heron obtained liftoff...

Wednesday's paddle on the Charles River took me from Woerd Ave (boat launch) down to the dam at Moody Street and Cronin's Landing...

...then upriver through the Lakes District to the Leo J. Martin Golf Course in Weston passing beneath the Boston and Albany Railroad bridge along the way...

Wildlife on the Charles surprised me with this immature eagle perched at water's edge by Mount Feake Cemetery...

It's the first time I've seen an eagle in Waltham except, of course, for the one created by a local artist and standing at the tip of a peninsula...

I first saw the above more than a decade ago and never dreamed I'd see a real eagle in this area.

Near Norumbega was this long-tailed hawk...

A pair of river otters swam by some fallen trees...

Bringing the wildlife restoration kind of full circle was seeing this beaver lodge diagonally across from the Waltham Watch Factory...

The beaver lodge and eagle had me remembering my 4th grade social studies class at the Nathaniel P. Banks elementary school (now a condominium) where I learned of the statues atop Waltham City Hall...one depicting a beaver and the other a bald eagle about to take flight. 

Also encountered this pipe-driving operation on the Charles near where Routes 90 and 95 converge overhead...

Closed out the week Friday morning on the Concord River with a paddle down to Brewster's Woods and October Farm which are connected by hiking trails...

Near the above sign a small pond offered some bright fall foliage...

At the riverfront portion of October Farm I stopped and paid an envious visit to William Brewster's canoe house built into the hillside...

He etched his initials and date inside...

According to the October Farm Riverfront Trail Guide William Brewster was the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society.  One of his best friends was Daniel Chester French, the man who sculpted the Concord Minuteman and the Lincoln Monument.

Trash from the Assabet on Monday...

Trash from the Charles on Wednesday...

Trash from the Concord on Friday...

The week's most interesting find was this one-quart milk bottle found floating upside down...

Once clean the faded label could still be read: 

Fred R. Jones

"Your Milk Man"

Old Acres Farm

-Concord, Mass-

Based on information found online I believe the bottle dates to the 1940s when folks routinely received their milk in re-usable bottles.  According to an advertisement in the April/May 1956 Future Farmer magazine "Fred Jones is the owner of two farms near Concord - "Old Acres" farm which has 110 acres and "Old Acres Sudbury" consisting of 90 acres. Mr. Jones has full dairy facilities at "Old Acres" and processes and bottles 1400 quarts of milk every day - serving customers in both Concord and Acton, Massachusetts."  The Mattison Field Trail Guide informs that "Old Acres" farm was located where Mattison Field is today along the Road to Nine Acre Corner in Concord.

Assabet Bits and Pieces

 

Paddled a few sections of the Assabet River this past week.  Started on Monday launching from Cox Street in Hudson, MA where the above photo shows the river winding into Stow.

Later in the week, on Wednesday I paddled further upriver on the Assabet launching at Chapin Rd. in Hudson and heading upriver...

Made it up to North Brook in Berlin, MA from which I later followed back the Assabet...

Muted fall foliage could be seen in places...

It had been more than a year since my last visit to this section of river, but at the remains of the Four Bridges the smiling statue was still there seeming to favor one of the several passages...

In looking for information about the Four Bridges I came across a 2006 Hudson Reconnaissance Report/Freedom's Way Landscape Inventory that lists the bridge ruins at Four Bridges Road and states this was the first bridge crossing of the Assabet in Hudson.  Topo maps from 1898 and 1917 show a road crossing the river connecting River Road and Brigham Street.  Later topo maps from the 1940s don't show a road crossing the river there.  In my search I also came across Brigham's Early Hudson History as written by Wilbur F. Brigham and compiled and edited by Katherine Johnson and Lewis Halprin in which the word Assabet is mentioned as meaning the "place of reeds" and the logo of Hudson's bicentennial in 1976 is shown including reeds and arrowheads.   This is the first I'd heard of that translation.  In John C. Huden's 1962 Indian Place Names of New England  there are several words beginning with the same letters.  One, Assabasset, comes the closest and is said to mean either "at the place between small brooks" or "wild flax place".  The Assabet sure has plenty of cattails and phragmites especially between Chapin Rd. and Rt. 495.

Past a busy Route 495 and almost back to Chapin Rd...

Ended my Assabet River paddling week on Friday paddling the section between Spencer's Brook and Damonmill in Concord, MA  (photo of Route 2 bridge)...

A blue heron near Westvale enjoyed the morning's warming sunshine...

The view upriver in Westvale...

Trash from Monday...

...included 41 miniatures (aka nips) and balls for sports of all seasons.

Trash from Wednesday...

...where the lion's share of the trash was in this large plastic bag snagged on a tree limb...

The bag contained all the fixin's for a family's day by the water including plastic water bottles, a plastic DD coffee bottle, Styrofoam cups, numerous plastic bags, utensils, and condiment containers

Trash from Friday was light...