Editing Middlesex Canal (section)

===Conception===
By 1790, England had thirty years and all of continental Europe's many canals to draw on for the experience. In the years after the [[American Revolutionary War]], the young United States began a period of economic expansion away from the coast. American men of influence had always kept an eye on news from Europe, especially from Great Britain, so when in the years from 1790–1794 the British Parliament passed eighty-one canal and navigation acts,<ref name=HES-Ch1&2-2>Roberts, Chapters I, pp. 4-5</ref> American leaders were paying attention.<ref name=HES-Ch1&2-2/>

Because of extremely poor roads, the cost of bringing goods such as lumber, ashes, grain, and fur to the coast could be quite high if water transport was unavailable. Most American rivers were made unnavigable by rapids and waterfalls. Up and down the Atlantic coast, companies were formed to build [[canal]]s as cheaper ways to move goods between the interior of the country and the coast. Well aware that to stay independent the nation needed to grow strong and develop industries, the news from Europe rekindled a number of previously dropped canal or [[Canal|navigations]] projects and began discussions leading in the next decades to many others.<ref name=HES-Ch1&2-2/> The year 1790 is credited as the start of the [[American Canal Age]].<ref>{{cite journal
  |title=The Canal Age |issue=July 1, 1998
  |journal =Archaeology (Online)|access-date=2016-06-12
  |institution= A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America
  |author      = James E. Held | date= July 1, 1998
  | url=http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/canal/
  |quote= Little is known of the vessels and waterways that fueled the Canal Age in the United States, from 1790 to 1855, since few records were kept and fewer of the much-used boats survived.
 }}
</ref>

In Massachusetts, several ideas were proposed for bringing goods to the principal port, [[Boston]], and connecting to the interior.<ref
 name=HES-Ch1&2>Roberts, Chapters I and Chapter II</ref> For about three years there were plans to connect the upper reaches of the [[Connecticut River]], above the falls at Enfield Connecticut, to Boston through a canal to the Charles.<ref name=HES-Ch1&2/> Connecticut was believed to rise at similar elevations to the [[Merrimack River]]'s, which could be reached by a string of streams, ponds, lakes, and manmade canals—if the canals were built.<ref name=HES-Ch1&2/> In the first two years, rough surveys sought the best route up to the Connecticut Valley; but no route was obviously best, and nobody championed a specific one. A few true believers, but lesser socialites, needed a champion and pestered the Secretary of War, [[Henry Knox]] to ignite the project. After the collapse of stocks in early 1793 put paid to a scheme to join the Charles River with Connecticut,{{efn |If indeed, there was any real interest in the speculation by Secretary Henry Knox, the economic downturn imperiled family holdings curtailing speculations with the family fortune.<ref name=HES-Ch1&2/> Roberts cites multiple letters by Boston cognizatti, most of which seem to have been totally ignored by Secretary Knox. No reply is recorded where he is effusive and engaged in the project after a few initial communications in 1790.<ref name=HES-Ch1&2/>}} championed by Henry Knox, a group of leading Massachusetts businessmen and politicians led by States Attorney General James Sullivan proposed a connection from the [[Merrimack River]] to [[Boston Harbor]] in 1793. This became the Middlesex (County) Canal system.

The Middlesex Canal Corporation was chartered on June 22, 1793, with a signature by Governor [[John Hancock]], who purchased shares with other political figures including [[John Adams]], [[John Quincy Adams]], [[James Sullivan (governor)|James Sullivan]], and [[Christopher Gore]]. The incorporators were [[James Sullivan (governor)|James Sullivan]]; [[Oliver Prescott]]; [[James Winthrop]]; [[Loammi Baldwin]]; Benjamin Hall; Jonathan Porter; Andrew Hall; Ebenezer Hall; Samuel Tufts Jr.; Willis Hall; Samuel Swan Jr.; and Ebenezer Hall Jr.<ref>"An Act incorporating James Sullivan, Esq. and others, by the Name and Style of ''The Proprietors of the Middlesex Canal''{{-"}}, June 22, 1793, [https://books.google.com/books?id=SlZNAQAAMAAJ&pg=465 p. 465''ff''], in ''Private and Special Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from the year 1780 ''etc.'' '', '''1''', 1805.</ref> Sullivan was made the company's president; its vice president and eventually chief engineer was Loammi Baldwin, a native of [[Woburn, Massachusetts|Woburn]], who had attended science lectures at [[Harvard College]] and was a friend of [[physicist]] [[Benjamin Thompson]].{{efn|Baldwin's sons would all go into civil engineering and the family became important figures in the building industrial revolution.<ref name=HES-Ch1&2/>}}