MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE - BLODGET CANAL HISTORY - SAMUEL BLODGET ---------------------------------- Information located at http://www.nh.searchroots.com On a web site about GENEALOGY AND HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE and its counties TRANSCRIBED BY JANICE BROWN Please see the web site for my email contact. ---------------------------------- The original source of this information is in the public domain, however use of this text file, other than for personal use, is restricted without written permission from the transcriber (who has edited, compiled and added new copyrighted text to same). ======================================================== SOURCE: History of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Philadelphia: J.W. Lewis & Co., 1885 THE BLODGET CANAL - page 110 THE BLODGET CANAL--The first projector of internal improvements in this section of the State was the Hon. Samuel Blodget, who was born in Worubrn, Mass., April 1, 1724. He was an active and perservering man. He had been a sutler in the colonial wars and also in the War of the Revolution, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and a merchant with extensive business connections. He located at Amoskeag in 1793, and soon conceived the idea of building around the latter a canal, through which might be carried ot market vast quantities of lumber from the forests which grew upon the banks of the river. He began work upon it May 2, 1794. He lost time and money in a vain attempt to make a practicable lock of his own invention,, and it was not until May 1, 1807, having spent all his own fortune and what money he could raise by lotteries, that he saw his work done. He died in the 1st day of September of the same year, and his canal, passing into the hands of the proprietors of the Middlesex Canal, was of great benefit until the railroad destroyed its usefulness and it went to decay. Judge Blodget was a far-sighted man. He invited Boston capitalists to build in Derryfield the mills which others erected thirty years after, and, in anticipation of their construction, he bought the clay lands where the well-known Hooksett brick are made today. It is well written on his monument in the Valley Cemetery that he was "the pioneer of internal improvements in New Hampshire." The following is a copy of Blodget's charter for the canal: "To the honorable the Senate & House of Representatives of the State of New Hampshire, the Petition of Samuel Blodget most respectfully sheweth,-- "That a spirit of enterprise and exertion has of late been wonderfully and successfully displayed by the citizens of a neighbouring State in the erection of bridges and forming of canals, even in places which, not many years since, were esteemed impracticable--that a canal round Patucket falls is nearly compleated--that another leading from said falls to Boston, by a rout not exceeding twenty miles, will be commenced next spring-- that a third carried round the falls at Amoskeag would, in conjunction with these, open a direct water communication with Boston & Newburyport to the inhabitants of an extensive country on the banks of the Merrimac above said falls, the wood and timber of whose forests are now of inconsiderable value, occasioned principally by the loss of immense quantities of lumber of the most valuable kind in passing over the falls; a melancholy proof of which they at all times exhibit--that your petitioner is fully convinced that the whole of this loss may be prevented by a canal--that under this conviction he has purchased the only piece of ground over which one is practicable--& has actually entered upon the enterprize, with an intention to risque his fortune in accomplishing a work of so much public utility.--Your petitioner, therefore, relying on the public spirit of the honorable Court, requests that your honors will take the premises into consideration, and grant him a Charter, by which he may be secured in the peaceable enjoyment of the valuable property, which he is about to invest in the proposed canal--& assign him a reasonable toll to compensate him for his services; & give him leave to bring in a bill accordingly. "And as in duty bound shall ever pray. "Samll Blodget." (end)