Long Gone Passageways

 

Journeyed this week to Connecticut and paddled sections of the Connecticut River above and below the 5 mile long Winsor Locks Canal which once allowed vessels to avoid the Enfield Rapids.  While the canal still exists vessels are no longer allowed to use it.  On Monday I launched from Linear Park (mud galore) in South Windsor, CT on the river's east side just across from the Connecticut's confluence with the Farmington River...  

This area saw the first English settlement (1633) in what is today Connecticut with a trading post located near the confluence.
 

From there I headed upriver passing the site where Bissells Ferry was operated for 150 years by the Bissell Family.  The ferry's long gone but this Bissell homestead remains on the river's eastern shore...

Just a bit beyond the ferry was the mouth of the Scantic River...

On the day of my visit the Connecticut River was very low...the Thompsonville gauge measured 3450 cfs and resulted in my running aground fairly frequently.  I found it hard to believe that boats laden with freight could have navigated through such shallow water up to Warehouse Point.

An air mattress hanging from a tree attested to how high water levels can go in the other direction...

My northern terminus was Curtis Island where I got this view towards the Rt. 91 bridge...

...and the southern end of the Windsor Locks Canal (below the rapids).

The following day I'd considered paddling around King's Island, but after seeing how low the water was I headed up to Thompsonville, CT instead.  There, above the rapids and the canal's northern end, I launched from the Donald Barnes Boat Launch on the eastern side of the river.   It's an excellent boat launch that checks all the boxes.  After launching I headed upriver passing by old bridge abutments that once carried a roadway across the river...

Passed where Longmeadow Brook enters...

After entering Massachusetts I had the Six Flags amusement park on my left...

...where, with it now being post Labor Day and a weekday, all the rides were motionless and quiet...

Stopped for lunch at Willy's Island...

...before heading back down to Thompsonville.  Arrived there just as a southbound New England Central Railroad freight train was passing through the town...

Wildlife seen over my 2 days on the Connecticut:

Green heron...

An egret...

An eagle...

I ended my paddling week on Friday with a visit to the Merrimack River in North Chelmsford, MA.

This year our 2024 calendar exactly matched that of the year 1839, the year John and Henry Thoreau traveled the Concord and Merrimack rivers up to Hooksett, NH. Not being sure how long it will be before the calendars coincide again I made it a point to paddle some of the Concord River on Saturday 8/31, the day John and Henry left from Concord, MA.  Likewise, with this Friday 9/13 marking the day their trip came to its conclusion, I decided to paddle to a spot on the Merrimack that they'd passed through on their way home.  The last day of their trip began Friday before 5 am near Reeds Ferry in Merrimack, NH and they made good time coming downriver with the help of a tailwind.  I picked up their route where they were approaching the entrance of the Middlesex Canal in Middlesex Village (North Chelmsford back then, Lowell today) at around mid-day.

Looking downriver at their last stretch on the Merrimack...

Shortly after taking the above photo I was passed by a silent electric-powered craft...

...leaving a wake without the usual noise of an outboard engine.  I wonder what the Thoreau brothers would've thought of the whole evolution of boat propulsion-from the simple oars and sail they employed, to steam, internal combustion, and the recently introduced electric power.

Shortly after passing under the Rourke Bridge...

...I began looking for the spot where long ago vessels would've left the Merrimack and entered the Middlessex Canal via several locks.  According to an article The Hadley House by Albert J. Welcome which appeared in the Middlesex Canal Association's Towpath Topics (Vol 27 No 2 March 1989) the entrance and the locks were filled in by the Lowell and Nashua RR in 1860.  Therefore it's tough to find the actual spot.  I used the steeple of the Shri Swamianaryan Hindu temple as an approximate reference point...

...which is on the river's south side.  Old maps show the canal locks being located just a bit east or downriver from the temple between present-day Baldwin and Pratt streets.  Passing through the locks at noon the Thoreau brothers still had to pull their boat six miles through the canal to Billerica and then row another 11 miles up the Concord River to their home port in Concord, MA.  They covered 50 miles that day arriving in Concord after dark.  BTW, could the operator of the locks at Middlesex Village have been Samuel P. Hadley (mentioned in the Towpath article), whom H.D.T. described as "a serene and liberal-minded man" as well as a "lover of the higher mathematics" in his book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers?

 

Earlier in the week, on Sunday,  Mrs.Trashpaddler and I participated in OARS annual river cleanup.  We worked the Assabet River's shoreline between the Powder Mill Dam in Acton and the Waltham St, Bridge in Maynard.  Near the dam were thick mats of algae...

Things got better above the impoundment area where the Assabet began to look like a river again...

Trash encountered during the week:

Sunday on the Assabet...

Monday on the Connecticut...

Tuesday on the Connecticut...

Friday on the Merrimack...

While searching for information regarding Windsor Locks and the Enfield Rapids on the Connecticut River I came across an article William Pynchon, the Agawam Indians, and the 1636 Deed for Springfield by David M. Powers which appeared in the Historical Journal of Massachusetts (Summer Vol 45 No 2 2017).  In reading the article I learned that in addition to being a successful business man, William Pynchon was also a free thinker who didn't accept the so-called vacuum domicilium argument - a "nobody lives here" view - namely, that if there were no residents to be seen the land was up for grabs.  In his dealings with Native Americans Pynchon recognized the Native Americans as the rightful "owners" of the land.  Wikipedia mentions Pynchon in 1650 writing a book on religion The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption that was both banned and burned in Boston.  As a result of the controversy Pynchon had to leave Springfield and return to England.  Free thinkers were not to be encouraged back in those days.  

Reunion on the Merrimack

 

The high point of this past week was a paddling reunion of sorts on the Merrimack River.  It was back in 2017 when I last paddled (trash patrolled) with Denise and company of the, then, New Hampshire Appalachian Mountain Club Paddlers.  On Thursday we launched from Reed's Ferry in Merrimack, NH and headed downriver.  The paddlers and their boats...

Denise put together this trip much as she previously organized trash patrols for many years on various New Hampshire and Massachusetts waterways...

We passed through the lock at Cromwell's Falls just as John and Henry Thoreau did back in 1839...

Our trip ended at Greeley Park in Nashua, NH...

...which had received a major upgrade since my last visit.  Quite a change for the better.

Started the week on Tuesday with a paddle on the Sudbury River to Fairhaven Bay...

Ended the week Saturday on a very shallow Assabet River in West Concord, MA...

...where the combination of shallow water and downed trees eventually stopped my upriver progress...

This turtle, like me, seemed to be looking for deeper water...

No trash was encountered on the Sudbury River.

On Thursday the group of us gathered this on our way down the Merrimack River...

On Saturday the very shallow Assabet River had this...

...which included an empty pot of gold.
 

World's End, Tool Afloat, and a Thoreau Voyage

 

The high point of my paddling week brought me to Hingham Harbor where I watched the sun climb above the trees while paddling towards World's End (photo above).  Prior to launching and while preparing my gear the sky was aglow (photo below)...

Reaching Martin's Cove the near slack waters of high tide allowed my entrance into Damde Meadows, a salt-water marsh...

In the 15-acre salt marsh (restored to being tidal in 2011) were great egrets, osprey, and white-tailed deer...

Returning to Hingham Harbor I headed north following the shore of the World's End peninsula.  Landed at the narrow "Bar" connecting two sections...

The view above is looking south towards Planters Hill with Hingham Harbor to the right and Weir River to the left.  Paddling around the northern tip I encountered a northeast breeze and this Osprey about to enjoy a snack...

World's End as seen from the Weir River side...

The trip back included views of the Boston skyline above a Boston Harbor island...

...as well as the MWRA's Deer Island wastewater treatment digesters appearing to loom above some houses...

Map (Boston Harbor Islands Partnership) showing World's End and the route I paddled...

World's End is considered to be part of the Boston Harbor Islands and is administered by The Trustees of  Reservations.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, I paddled the Assabet River in Stow and Maynard...

  

Soon after launching I came upon an almost suitcase-sized container floating in a slough.  The case contained a very heavy tool used in testing concrete...

Fortunately, there was a laminated paper inside with the owner's name thus allowing its return to the rightful owner.  The owner reported his job-site trailer (on a bridge spanning an Assabet tributary) having been broken into a few days prior.  He speculated the thieves didn't know what to make of this tool.

Later in my paddle I heard an eagle's call and looked upwards at the source...

Wrapped up the week yesterday on the Concord River with thoughts of John and Henry Thoreau's 1839 voyage from Concord, MA to Hooksett, NH via the Concord River, Middlesex Canal, and Merrimack River.  Like the brothers, I too started on a Saturday, the 31st day of August.  In A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Henry D. Thoreau described their vessel: "Our boat which had cost us a week's labor in the spring, was in form like a fisherman's dory, fifteen feet long, by three and a half in breadth at the widest part, painted green below, with a border of blue, with reference to the two elements in which it was to spend its existence.  It had been loaded the the evening before at our door, half a mile from the river, with potatoes and melons from a patch which we had cultivated, and a few utensils, and was provided with wheels in order to be rolled around falls, as well as two sets of oars, and several slender poles for shoving in shallow places, and also two masts, one of which served for a tent-pole at night; for a buffalo skin was to be our bed, and a tent of cotton cloth our roof.  It was strongly built but heavy, and hardly of better model than usual."

I followed their route, from where I believe they launched near the present-day Calf Pasture, downriver passing some of the landmarks Thoreau mentioned in his book and some he didn't:

The boathouse at the Old Manse...

...worthy of mention because their boat would ultimately come into Nathaniel Hawthorne's possession and be stored near this very spot.

The Old North Bridge replica (only the abutments of the original were there in 1839)...

The Minuteman statue (which didn't exist until 1875)...

 

Cardinal flowers were seen by both them and myself...

Upon encountering a man fishing Thoreau discussed fishing and the many species of fish.  It was only fitting that I would encounter a father-son team who'd just landed this good-sized bass...

The Thoreau brothers landed at Ball's Hill...

...which Thoreau referred to as "the St. Ann's of Concord voyageurs, not to say any prayer for the success of our voyage, but to gather the few berries which were still left on the hills..." 

I followed their route as far as the "Carlisle Bridge" (Rte. 225) which Thoreau described as having "twenty wooden piers in 1839 ...

Before turning about and heading upriver I looked through the bridge...

...towards where they continued another 2.5 miles before setting up camp on a small island in Billerica.

With meteorological summer now having come to an end I particularly liked Henry's comment while on their return trip nearly 2 weeks later.  Upon awaking on the last day of their trip: "That night was the turning point in the season.  We had gone to bed in summer and we awoke in autumn; for summer passes into autumn in some unimaginable point of time, like the turning of a leaf."  

 
Trash from the Assabet River (included the non-trash concrete tester)...

 Trash from Hingham Harbor/World's End was sparse...

Trash from the Concord River was also sparse with only 1 Mylar balloon...