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Middlesex Canal & Lowell talk
November 16, 2019 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
J. Jeremiah Breen is the speaker, president of the Middlesex Canal Association since 2011.
The Middlesex Canal Co. was chartered in 1793. John Hancock was the first proprietor.
The Middlesex Canal had been a water highway for more than twenty years when Lowell
was founded. Major topics, (1) Market St was named because boats from Boston and Concord
landed there to sell their goods; (2) the cotton storehouse for the Merrimack Mills was
built over the Merrimack Canal, allowing bales to be hoisted directly into storage; (3) a
staircase of locks, still partially extant, was built in the Western Canal for canal boats to
deliver cotton to the Lawrence Mills; and (4) why the Middlesex Canal is as important as
Pawtucket Falls in founding Lowell.