Read Online The Lightning Keeper by Starling Lawrence - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Starling Lawrence
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breweries, silk spinningâ¦on and on went the list. Nothing seemed impossible to Aaron Bigelow, and, as he was fond of pointing out, after the canal was built, it was all free, for so long as the Buttermilk River should flow. Yes, the canal would be expensive, as every great work from the pyramids on must have been, but Bigelow was able to paint such a picture of Power City with all those wheels turning day and night that he found many willing investors, some of whom built their factories while the canal was being dug.
To the town fathers, and to the men of substance throughout the North West Corner, the plan, and its larger ramifications, had a compelling, dizzying logic. Even before the capital had been raised, the railroad commission made a recommendation to the legislature that the main line of the railroad be rerouted through Beecherâs Bridge. And this was not all: a bank note printed in 1875 by the Iron Bank of Beecherâs Bridge shows a foreshortened perspective of the town and the ironworks against a background of tall masts and swelling canvas. Not only would the railway come to the magnet of Power City, but a series of locks and canals on the Housatonic and the Buttermilk would bring oceangoing cargo vessels to the new metropolis at the foot of Great Mountain.
Aaron Bigelow was an iron maker, not an engineer, and therein lay the fatal flaw of his scheme. In order to move the water of the Buttermilk past the hundred waterwheels of Power City, he needed a dam and a canal. Bigelows had built dams before: the old dam on the Buttermilk itself that diverted water through the ironworks, and several smaller dams along tributary streams to create holding ponds or reservoirs against those droughts that could shut down the works for weeks in the dog days of summer. This new dam did not daunt him, though itmust be built to span the entire watercourse and would divert much, and sometimes all, of its flow. The dam was built, and it stands to this day: see how the water, still pale and turbid from snowmelt, falls like a veil over its top.
Perhaps he gave less consideration to the construction of the canal after he had laid it out; perhaps he was distracted by the great work of promoting his idea and raising the capital for it; perhaps he thought that a canal is no more than a ditch: you dug it out, and it worked. Except that this canal, because of the slope of the land, was more aqueduct than ditch, as those impressive stones in the undergrowth below us will attest. The work seemed to be done carefully enough. Every two hundred feet or so there is a section of the wall where the stones do not lap each other, and straight vertical cracks, six feet apart, run down from the parapet. These are the blanks, so-called, where the stones could be knocked out without damage to the structure and a wooden flume inserted, thus diverting water to the wheel of that particular enterprise. So proud of their work were the masons that now and again they signed it, leaving initials and dates, sometimes an inscription in Latin, like so many tombstones set in the wall.
Any child knows the difficulty of taking a handful of water and holding it aloft: the water will find its way out through the cracks. This, in essence, was the fate of Aaron Bigelowâs canal, for it wasâquite inexplicablyâimproperly lined, or the force of water underestimated. Over the stones that formed the bottom of the canal was laid a thick blanket of clay, carted in from some distance, our own soil being thin and sandy. On top of the clay a mosaic of flat stones was set down, as one would do to finish a terrace or courtyard. No cement whatever was used. Perhaps it was considered and rejected as a pointless extravagance.
Aaron Bigelow was in all respects and in all matters a forceful, persuasive man, but the water would not do his bidding. When the great day arrivedâthere were already eight factories built, and another seventeen at some stage of
To the town fathers, and to the men of substance throughout the North West Corner, the plan, and its larger ramifications, had a compelling, dizzying logic. Even before the capital had been raised, the railroad commission made a recommendation to the legislature that the main line of the railroad be rerouted through Beecherâs Bridge. And this was not all: a bank note printed in 1875 by the Iron Bank of Beecherâs Bridge shows a foreshortened perspective of the town and the ironworks against a background of tall masts and swelling canvas. Not only would the railway come to the magnet of Power City, but a series of locks and canals on the Housatonic and the Buttermilk would bring oceangoing cargo vessels to the new metropolis at the foot of Great Mountain.
Aaron Bigelow was an iron maker, not an engineer, and therein lay the fatal flaw of his scheme. In order to move the water of the Buttermilk past the hundred waterwheels of Power City, he needed a dam and a canal. Bigelows had built dams before: the old dam on the Buttermilk itself that diverted water through the ironworks, and several smaller dams along tributary streams to create holding ponds or reservoirs against those droughts that could shut down the works for weeks in the dog days of summer. This new dam did not daunt him, though itmust be built to span the entire watercourse and would divert much, and sometimes all, of its flow. The dam was built, and it stands to this day: see how the water, still pale and turbid from snowmelt, falls like a veil over its top.
Perhaps he gave less consideration to the construction of the canal after he had laid it out; perhaps he was distracted by the great work of promoting his idea and raising the capital for it; perhaps he thought that a canal is no more than a ditch: you dug it out, and it worked. Except that this canal, because of the slope of the land, was more aqueduct than ditch, as those impressive stones in the undergrowth below us will attest. The work seemed to be done carefully enough. Every two hundred feet or so there is a section of the wall where the stones do not lap each other, and straight vertical cracks, six feet apart, run down from the parapet. These are the blanks, so-called, where the stones could be knocked out without damage to the structure and a wooden flume inserted, thus diverting water to the wheel of that particular enterprise. So proud of their work were the masons that now and again they signed it, leaving initials and dates, sometimes an inscription in Latin, like so many tombstones set in the wall.
Any child knows the difficulty of taking a handful of water and holding it aloft: the water will find its way out through the cracks. This, in essence, was the fate of Aaron Bigelowâs canal, for it wasâquite inexplicablyâimproperly lined, or the force of water underestimated. Over the stones that formed the bottom of the canal was laid a thick blanket of clay, carted in from some distance, our own soil being thin and sandy. On top of the clay a mosaic of flat stones was set down, as one would do to finish a terrace or courtyard. No cement whatever was used. Perhaps it was considered and rejected as a pointless extravagance.
Aaron Bigelow was in all respects and in all matters a forceful, persuasive man, but the water would not do his bidding. When the great day arrivedâthere were already eight factories built, and another seventeen at some stage of
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