Trashpaddler: An Obscured Confluence

My objective this past week was to take advantage of our high water levels of late and paddle to the confluence of the Quinsigamond and Blackstone rivers (opening photo) in Grafton, MA. I visited the area on 2 days, Tuesday and Thursday, launching both times from Riverview Park. The area of the confluence is within present-day's Fisherville Pond as can be seen on this 1953 USGS topo map found on the UNH/Wayback Machine website...

An 1831 map by Charles Brigham Jr. shows the actual confluence more clearly...

The mill pond created by the dam is often weed-choked due to the combination of shallow water and accumulation of nutrients...

At the launch site a fellow paddler shared knowledge of an active eagle nest near the confluence and sure enough an adult eagle was encountered...

The nest was located not far from there with an eaglet awaiting its next food delivery...

From the confluence I paddled up the Quinsigamond River in a mostly northerly direction...

At one point I came across riverside plants which looked to me like tobacco plants...

Less than 800 feet from this spot is a Native American cemetery dating to the 1660s which I stopped at on my drive to the boat launch...

There were about 8 small gravestones...

A boulder in the cemetery was inscribed with words which were difficult to discern...

I ended up reading them as if using Braille. It read "Eliot's Band of Praying Indians" and was dated 1890.

According to Frederick C. Pierce's 1879 History of Grafton, Worcester County, Massachusetts, from its early settlement by the Indians in 1647 to the present time, 1879 "The tribe which made the location of this town their home were called the Hassanamesits, who were in subjection to the Nipmucks. Hassanamesit was the third town, which was established in 1660 by the Rev. John Eliot, for the praying Indians, Punkapoag and Natick being established prior, in 1647". Eliot and a Native American known as "James the Printer" would later undertake the task of translating the English Bible into the Algonkian language. The praying village was 4 square miles.

In the book The Sacred Landscape of New England's Native Civilization- Manitou by James W. Mavor Jr. and Byron E. Dix the authors noted Hassanamesit's proximity to several rivers: Assabet, Blackstone, Charles, Quinsigamond, and Sudbury rivers noting "It is likely that Hassanamessitt, the seat and sacred center of the Nipmuck Nation, was, with the adjoining strips of land, retained by the Indians because of its special location at the source of the waters of Massachusetts, making this area a place of powerful manitou."

My guess is the location of the praying Indians cemetery, which overlooks a brook and intervale leading to the Quinsigamond River, also was a place of powerful manitou.

A sign across the road from the cemetery commemorated the village's name...

Further up the Quinsigamond I reached the Pleasant Street Bridge built in 1886...

...and just beyond some interesting rock formations...

...where I turned around and headed back.

On another day (with sunnier skies) I paddled up the Blackstone River from the confluence...

...up to different Pleasant Street Bridge...

Before reaching the bridge I encountered another strong-flowing stream entering from the Blackstone from its south side. I believe this stream was where the river took a shortcut via the abandoned Blackstone Canal route.

Once back at the confluence I headed the short distance down the Blackstone to the dam at Fisherville...

...where there were no visible warning signs for the dam. A short distance to the dam's west was the gate structure which formerly allowed water into the mill works...

This spot was where earlier the Blackstone Canal approached Lock 30 on its way downstream from Worcester to Providence. The lock is said to have been covered over by the mill. I'm left to wonder if any of this stone work once served the canal...

The canal re-emerges across the road from the Fisherville Mill site and heads south...

A bronze plaque in Mill Villages Park (across Main St. from the mill) shows the canal's route through this area...

A faded map shows the many transportation routes which funneled through this spot: the Blackstone River, Blackstone Canal (and towpath), and the Providence and Worcester Railroad...

Pierce's 1879 History Of Grafton notes "The first start in manufacturing, at this place, was made by Timothy McNamara, who having purchased the land where the mills now stand of Moses Sherman, and the water power rights of Austen Holbrook, in 1830 began work upon the dam, building it jointly with the Blackstone Canal Company, they using it as a feeder for their canal". Pierce also noted that in 1869 the mill expanded to three stories and 160 looms that processed 400,000 pounds of cotton into 1,500,000 yards of cloth.

The brick mill building stood for many years before being destroyed by a fire in 1999. Today the place is for sale...