ton of Springfield and nineteen others procured from the Great and General Court an act of incorporation "for the purpose of rendering the Connecticut river passable for boats and other things from the mouth of the Chicopee river northward through the Commonwealth," — the corporation being entitled "the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on the Connecticut river." Work was begun at South Hadley Falls as soon as possible, under Benjamin Prescott of Northampton, superintending engineer, subsequently superintendent at the United States Armory in Springfield. Improvement of the rapids at Montague was contemplated, as well as those at South Hadley, but costs exceeding estimates, the development of the former was abandoned to Samuel Henshaw and Benjamin Prescott of Northampton and Jonathan Dwight of Springfield and their associates, who procured a new charter as "the Proprietors of the Upper Locks and Canals on the Connecticut river"; and the old corporation continued work on the South Hadley canal. This canal began at a point where the South Hadley Falls end of the present great dam is now located, under a red sandstone bluff, was cut most of the way out of sandstone, and extended northward along the river's trend two and a half miles where it opened into the river above a wing dam projected obliquely outward. The waterway was constructed for the accommodation of boats twenty feet wide by forty feet long; but after ten years of use increasing commerce compelled the deepening of the canal four feet and the introduction of an improved system of locks, the work being undertaken by Ariel Cooley, a man of rare energy and resources, whose administration of the corporation extended from 1802 to 1823 or 1824, the date of his death. During this period Mr. Cooley rebuilt or enlarged the dam three or four times, taking as his compensation for all service one-fourth of the gross receipts. Mr. Cooley's heirs continued the business and built the wing dam which was standing when the present great dam was built in 1849. The canal around the falls gave a great impulse to river traffic and the growth of towns on the river. The vast body of water coursing its foamy way down the Hadley rapids was unused, On the west side of the river, save by a community grist mill and a cotton mill of four thousand spindles, built in 1831 by the old Hadley Falls Company, the power being derived from a wing dam. At this date twenty-two houses were scattered over the "fields," and one hundred and eight or ten dwellings held the remaining population of the parish; nor did the population greatly increase during the next decade, at the end of which time the movement was set on foot which brought to stage route and river navigation the destructive competition of the Connecticut River railroad, opened in December, 1845. Soon after this event capitalists visited the falls, and with great secrecy determined their course, which was nothing less than the construction of a dam across the river and the purchase of all the territory upon either side of the river necessary to the proper development of a great manufacturing city. These then unknown projectors employed the late George C. Ewing, of the scale manufacturing firm of Fairbanks & Co., as purchasing agent. Mr. Ewing had purchased a farm in 1846 just west of the desired territory, through which means he had become acquainted with the original owners of the tract; and this acquaintance he used with consummate art. The first successful essay was the possession of thirty-seven acres of land embracing the bluff, now Prospect Park, looking down upon the proposed site of the dam; the next was the acquirement of the franchises of the old Hadley Falls Company and those of the "Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Connecticut river," the former company being won by the concession of $100,000 worth of stock in the new com-
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