This white water changed United States history

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The United States has many athletic based fundraisers. Altruistic outdoorspeople can run, bike, swim, hike and much else to raise money for charity. Few, however, offer the opportunity to raise money by white water rafting. Today, I did just that. The Lowell Parks and Conservation Trust arranges the trips, and we get the chance to raft a river with an unusual combination of natural excitement and industrial history.

Lowell, one of the oldest industrial cities in the United States, sits at the confluence of the Merrimack and Concord Rivers. Its founders chose this spot due to a series of rapids on both to power their mills. The Merrimack River has the big one, Pawtucket Falls, which fueled the city’s famous textile mills. Rafting it now would be a poor way to commit suicide. The Concord has a series of much smaller rapids that powered mills producing everything from gunpowder to textile dye. Raging with spring snowmelt, we can raft them safely.

Rafting the Concord

I’m used to meeting raft guides at either parking lots or campgrounds far from civilization. This time was very different; we met at a hotel in the middle of downtown Lowell! It overlooks the junction of a canal and the Concord River, and two very old stone locks.

After signing paperwork, we drove along the river into outer Lowell. Most of the scenery was old brick factories and equally old workers’ housing. Eventually we crossed the river next to a cemetery. Guides love to joke about how this trip starts next to a burial ground, and hopefully doesn’t end in one!

Below the bridge, the river flows over an old dam. Early settlers called this section Wamesit Falls. Rafting dams is dangerous, so we put in below it.

The far bank has a feature called the “car wash”. Two big boulders sit in front of a section of old factory that overhangs the river. The tunnel underneath is just wide enough for a raft. Our boat had experienced rafters so our guide went for it. First, she turned the boat upstream and we paddled hard. This brought us across the river to the first rock. We floated below it and then paddled hard upstream again to reach the second rock. Another brief float followed by another hard paddle got us to the tunnel entrance and we turned in. The actual ride was worth less than the coolness points for pulling it off!

Downstream, the river entered a long series of waves and little drops. These are a warm up. The drops got steeper until we entered Twisted Sister. The rapid contains three river-wide ledges a half foot tall each. The only way through required rapidly moving from one side of the river to the other, crashing through waves over a ledge, and then moving back across for the next ledge (hence the name). The constant turning required precision paddling, which was tough, very wet, and very fun. Trust me, we were gonna take what this rock dished out!

Below the rapid, the river entered a calm stretch. It passed a number of old brick factories once powered by the dam above. A few are still in use, some others have been turned into housing, and the remainder are just abandoned. Below the factories, the river passed under a beautiful stone keystone arch bridge from the late 1800s. Guides had us on our toes here, because the next rapid starts immediately afterward.

Rafters call the next part the Three Beauties. The river splits and we turned to the left. We then crashed through a series of increasingly large waves, the warm up. The two channels merge and the beauties begin. First was a big standing wave. The second was an even larger standing wave. We then faced a foot high drop in a humongous standing wave, which looks incredibly intimidating from above. Early settlers called it Massic Falls. This wave swamped the boat and can easily make it go vertical or flip. Thankfully, the river has a big calm pool to recover afterward.

Another calm section, under a second beautiful old keystone arch bridge, brought us to the next rapid. Middlesex Falls was once a long set of rapids close to the confluence with the Merrimack. Naturally, early industrialists built a big stone dam over it. The dam broke in a flood decades ago, creating the most exciting and dangerous rapid on the river. It’s filled with concrete and rusty iron bars, creating a nasty swim. Rafters call it the Dam Rapid, although the off-color pun is just as appropriate.

To float it, we moved close to the left bank where the water was deepest. That led to a foot high drop into a big wave. We had to turn the boat immediately afterward to avoid the wall, threading a slot next to a big stone block. That led to another sharp drop into another wave at the bottom. The rapid was short, but tough as heck.

After the former dam, the river passes through downtown Lowell. It’s lined with concrete flood control walls, so we had no place to exit. The canal with the locks, which is also the overflow channel for the mills, merged from the left.

Close to the Merrimack River, the river passes next to a big mill complex. Much of it has been turned into housing, but the easternmost section has been abandoned. Floating by shows the buildings flush to the flood control walls, making access very tough. Even here, the buildings are intact after nearly two centuries of New England winters; early industrialists built them to last. Every building has the signature features of the era, red brick walls, thick wooden floors, and absolutely enormous windows. In an era before electricity, people had to work by natural light and those windows let in as much as possible.

Eventually, we floated onto the Merrimack River itself. It had clearly visible current from all the snowmelt, otherwise it was completely calm. Importantly from our perspective, just after the junction the concrete flood wall became a rock one instead. This, believe it or not, was our takeout.

We left the river by carefully climbing the rocks, in slippery wet outfits. The guides hauled up the rafts using a big rope. We then had to lift them overhead and follow the very unofficial trail to the nearest parking lot. It’s private, so we then had to carry the boats across the lot and street to the vans. This was the most difficult part of the entire trip!

I loved the trip on the Concord, but it was way too short. The guides must have the same opinion, because we drove right back to the put in and did it all again! This is a classic technique for turning a short trip into something more exciting. With paddlers having previous experience on the river, guides can take more adventurous lines the second time around.

The change really showed in Twisted Sister. Our guide spun the boat around from ledge to ledge. We took the first one backwards and turned forward for the next (sideways would be a really bad idea). The last drop backwards was something of a surprise and hit hard.

Three Beauties has only one safe route though, so it matched the previous time through. I’m not complaining. Massic Falls was just as intimidating the second time.

Immediately afterward, we attempted something special. When water flows over a rock, its momentum carries it downward, creating a depression in the river. The water on either side rushes in, creating a whirlpool called a "hole". When the hole is the same size as a raft, sticking one there will cause it to spin round and round and fill with water, a “hole surf”. These can be very dangerous, because the raft often bucks and rocks at the precise instant rafters have the least amount of bracing.

At the right water level, Massic Falls in Three Beauties creates the best hole surf in New England; the sweet spot will be nearly as wide as the river. Kayakers in particular will happily spin in that hole as long as daylight lasts. With more water, the downward current tends to push people out and the area that can be surfed becomes much smaller. With the river high from snow melt, we were going to have a challenge.

The first part was simple, paddle straight at a barely visible ledge until we hit it. We got wet, but this isn’t the surf. We then had to turn sideways and paddle into the stronger current next to the ledge, fighting hard against the water flow. Our guide estimated that the spot we needed to catch was about a foot wide. Just when I thought we’d miss it, we got in. A huge wave poured into the boat until it filled, and then the current kicked us out. The other rafts tried it too. One got in; the other was amusing to watch as they got bounced out again and again.

Of course, it was so fun we had to try it again. Whatever the reason, our luck ran out. The second time through we got close time and again, but never made it. None of the other rafts made it either and we reluctantly floated away.

The Dam Rapid, like Three Beauties, is dangerous enough to only have one safe route through. Afterwards, however, things changed completely. We turned into the canal. The canal was originally built to bypass Pawtucket Falls in 1797 before Lowell even existed, and contains two of the oldest locks in the United States, built in 1841.

The locks still work. We got out of the river through them! First, we floated into a long chamber made of cut rocks with huge wooden swing doors on either end. The door edges are cut at an angle, such that the water pressure will force them closed. After the rafts floated in, conservatory volunteers closed the lower doors.

Humans can’t possibly apply enough pressure on the upper doors to open them against the weight of the water. Instead, people turned bolts on the doors with a huge wrench. This opened a pair of valves in the lower portion of each door. A big waterfall poured in, slowly raising the water level in the lock. We got quite soaked from the spray. Eventually, the water level equalized and the upper doors opened. We floated through, into another lock. The process repeated and we floated up to the level of the canal, right next to the hotel where the trip started! With this, it was over.

Downtown Lowell

I had time after the raft trip, so I explored Lowell. Downtown is quite safe in daylight and has kiosks with helpful maps. Although things have improved greatly in the last few decades, Lowell is still a city where visitors should know what they are doing.

The first thing I saw was a small park with a single bell. It’s a memorial to the city’s mill workers. Before the mills, people essentially could make their own work hours. The high coordination required to run a mill forced workers to follow set schedules, much like the machines they tended. Since clocks were expensive, significant events in the day were signaled by bells. Each mill had their own, so bells rang through the city whenever the sun was up. This bell is the only one in Lowell definitively traced to a Lowell mill. Mill workers worked twelve hours a day (with one hour off for meals) during the week, and six more on Saturdays.

Downtown appears soon after the park. It shows that Lowell was once a rather wealthy place. Glorious Victorian commercial buildings line the main streets. The look is just a bit fake, because many have been restored after falling to disrepair in previous decades. Still, it’s a good looking area now with new shops and restaurants. I was quite thankful for the latter; I needed food after the raft trip.

From downtown, I followed the main power canal toward the Merrimack River. It passes a park containing columns of black granite. Getting close shows the columns are covered in words. Reading some shows they are taken from the writings of Jack Kiroac. Although the voice of the Beat Generation earned his fame in New York and San Francisco, he was born in Lowell. This is the city’s tribute to a native son.

Immediately afterward, the canal turned and the road passed Massachusetts Mill, the same one I saw from the river. From this side it looked like a brick fortress. Two central towers held huge clocks, and once held bells. As noted earlier, the mill has been turned into housing.

Past the mill, the road reached a bridge over the Merrimack River. Said bridge holds a view that a century and three quarters ago was the grandest in the industrial world, the Lowell Mile of Mills. Red brick mills stretched one after the other along the river, one of the largest concentrations of manufacturing on earth. These days it’s much less grand, with big gaping holes and the remaining buildings quiet. One has been turned into a museum, some are housing, some others are factory spaces, and several have been torn down.

Concord Greenway

I still had daylight after downtown, so I decided to find the Concord Greenway my rafting fees are helping to build. It’s very much a work in progress, with parts only dirt paths and others missing altogether. When finished, it will be a paved path along the river with panels describing its history. Until then, visitors need to know the area; Lowell’s outer neighborhoods are not a place for casual exploration.

One finished section parallels the upper river, the same place I started the raft trip. The entrance features a pillar of rocks, a memorial to Paul Tsongas. A local Congressman and Senator who ran for President in 1992, he was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 and died three years later. For local residents he brought Lowell out from Boston’s huge political shadow, and his death was a huge shock.

The lower section by the remains of Middlesex Dam has another finished section. The panels discuss the history of this section, mostly factories of one kind or another. Lowell was a small scale mill center before the arrival of the textile mills in the early 1800s. All have since been torn down in early urban renewal efforts, making the area much more open than it was at its height.

The section with the most important history, that of Victorian Lowell, is not finished yet. It began with Francis Cabot Lowell, a member of a wealthy and connected Boston merchant family. He traveled to England, and noticed both the new mechanized textile mills and the huge profits they generated. On his return he decided the United States needed mills of its own. One problem: the British government had declared mill machinery a strategic asset and prohibited export. Lowell solved that problem when he found a British engineer who knew the designs and was willing to emigrate. Lowell then organized a partnership and opened his mill on the Charles River near Boston in 1813.

While the mill proved the concept would work, the Charles River did not have reliable enough water for profitable production. Lowell died before finding a more suitable site. His partners kept at it, however, and ultimately selected Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River. The river drains roughly one third of New Hampshire and has huge volume. Plus, the existing canal built to bypass the falls could be repurposed to supply power. They bought the site and laid out a new industrial city named in their founder’s honor.

Mill owners originally hired the daughters of local farmers to tend the machines, the “mill girls”. Once labor needs outgrew this pool, owners hired new arrivals from across Europe. At its height, Lowell was a city of immigrants. Over half of residents were either born outside the United States or had parents who were. While this gave Lowell the appearance of a melting pot, it was only on the surface. Mill jobs were stratified by skill and danger level, and the most desirable went to those whose families had been in the country the longest.

The panels don’t mention the more recent history of Lowell, and I don’t blame them. Like much of industrial Massachusetts, it’s pretty ugly. Lowell’s mills started losing business to newer mills in the South as early as the 1890s. They had much better transportation links and newer machinery. Perhaps most importantly, the South still had huge pools of unskilled labor while workers in the northeast were successfully organizing to demand (expensive) improvements in working conditions. Except for a surge during World War II making parachutes and uniforms, Lowell’s mills steadily closed over the next half century, the last one in 1956.

The city suffered a deep recession for the next few decades, until computer manufactures arrived in the 1980s. They needed cheap industrial land near Boston, and the city had plenty. Although they didn’t last, they gave the city a reputation of a tech center that it is still trying to build on. These days leaders are also trying to promote the city as an arts destination. Lowell has more activity now than any time in the previous fifty years, but still has a long way to go.

Pawtucket Falls

I couldn’t leave without seeing Pawtucket Falls, what made all of this possible in the first place. Thanks to the canal, it’s a good distance from downtown. A bridge crosses the river just below the falls. In spring snowmelt it’s an awesome sight, a quarter mile wide completely artificial waterfall flowing over the dam. Below it, the river cascades over a series of jagged rocks. The falls shows the power of flowing water in full, power that once brought people here to work and now brings some to play. The sun was setting by this point, and outer Lowell is not a place to linger after dark, so I headed for home afterward.

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Photos

Massic Falls
The last of the Three Beauties on the Concord River

Car wash
Float a raft through this for serious coolness points

Twisted Sister warmup
Riffles on the way to Twisted Sister

Dam Rapid
The remains of Middlesex Dam, from the Greenway.

Pawtucket Locks
Two of the oldest working locks in the United States

Pawtucket Gates
Closeup of one of the gates, showing the valves that allow the locks to work

Mill worker memorial
One of the bells that dictated workers' lives in 1800s Lowell

Downtown Lowell
Victorian buildings in downtown Lowell

Power canal
The main mill power canal. The Pawtucket locks are just out of view to the right.

Kiroac Memorial
Lowell's tribute to Jack Kiroac, a native son

Massachusetts Mill
Central portion of one of Lowell's big mills

Lowell Mile of Mills
In the 1800s, red brick mills stretched to the smokestacks in the far distance, just under a mile.

Paul Tsongas memorial
Memorial to former US Representative, Senator, and Presidential candidate Paul Tsongas

Bird Sculptures
Sculptures along the Greenway near the remains of Middlesex Dam

Pawtucket Falls
The rapid that made Lowell possible, raging in spring snowmelt

Pawtucket Falls detail
Closeup of a small portion of the falls.

Pawtucket locks
Another view of the locks, looking downstream

Downtown Lowell
More Victorian architecture in downtown Lowell

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Rough and rapid
Another fantastic white water adventure.

[Roosta]

Urban whitewater
Thanks for the comment. This was a fun trip, and so close to home!

[D MJ Binkley]

U.S. History
Thanks for writing from a historical perspective. Love your blogs, the story of change.

[Roosta]

Lowell history
Lowell's history was part of the appeal of the trip, although rafting near home was big too. One of the guides teaches elementary school, and arranges a field trip to the mills every year. Thanks for the comments.