History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from its settlement in 1654;

576 HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTON. [1792.
plation, but it was not till 1792, that the enterprise of building
canals around the falls at South Hadley and Montague
took definite shape. On the 23'' of February, the Legislature
incorporated "the Proprietors of the locks and Canals
on Connecticut River," for the purpose of rendering the
river navigable for boats and other things from the mouth
of Chicopee River to the northern boundary of the State.
The corporators named in the act consisted of twenty-one
of the prominent business men of Hampshire County.
Among them were Caleb Strong, Robert Breck, Samuel
Henshaw, Ebenezer Lane, Ebenezer Hunt, Benjamin Prescott
and Levi Shephard of Northampton. ^ Christopher
CoUis of New York made the preliminary surveys, and
subsequently the work was put in charge of Benjamin
Prescott, as chief engineer. The canal at South Hadley
was to be completed in four years, that at Turners Falls in
six years.
Specifications.
Engineer Prescott had no precedents in this
country to aid him in the planning or exe-
cution of the work. It was the first canal constructed in
New England, and the first of any importance finished in
the United States. The capacity of the locks was to be
equal to the transportation of boats or rafts twenty feet
wide and sixty feet long. Toll was fixed from the mouth
of Chicopee River to the mouth of Stony Brook. For
every ton in weight it was to be 4s. fid. ; for one thousand
feet of boards the rate was the same, and for other lumber
in rafts or otherwise, in the same proportion. In the following
year the Legislature empowered the company to
assess the proprietors in order to obtain money to carry on
the work, and to sell the shares of all who refused to pay.
The cost of the undertaking bid fair to exceed the estimates,
and money was hard to be obtained. These financial
troubles very nearly wrecked the enterprise. Money
sufficient for its needs could not be obtained in this country,
and the scheme was laid before the financiers of Holland.
1 The corporators named in addition to the men from Northampton were Hon.
John Worthiugton, Samuel Lyman, Jonathan and Thomas Dwight, John Hooker. William
Smith of Springfield, Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge. David Sexton and
John Williams of Deerfield, Samuel Fowler of Westfield, Justin Ely of West Springfield,
Dwight Foster of Brookfleld, Simeon Strong of Amherst, and William Moore.