Misplaced Pages

Great Works River

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
River in United States of America
Great Works River c. 1910

The Great Works River is a 30.6-mile-long (49.2 km) river in southwestern Maine in the United States. It rises in central York County and flows generally south past North Berwick and joins the tidal part of the Salmon Falls River at South Berwick.

The native Newichawannock band of Abenaki called it the Asbenbedick. In July 1634, William Chadbourne, James Wall and John Goddard arrived from England aboard the ship Pied Cow with a commission to build a sawmill and gristmill at the river's Assabumbadoc Falls. The sawmill they built, thought to be the first over-shot water-powered site in America, was located in the "Rocky Gorge" below today's Brattle Street bridge. Their sawmill was rebuilt with up to 20 saws on what was then the "Little River" in 1651 by Richard Leader, an engineer granted exclusive right to the water power. It was thereafter called the "Great mill workes," from which the Great Works River derives its present name.

References

  1. U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed June 30, 2011
  2. Palmer, Ansell W., ed. Piscataqua Pioneers: Selected Biographies of Early Settlers in Northern New England, pp. 67, 116-7, Piscataqua Pioneers, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 2000. ISBN 0-9676579-0-3.
  3. "William Chadbourne (b. 1582), Pioneer Millwright of 1634: Great Works," Old Berwick Historical Society Web site (http://oldberwick.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=234&Itemid=252), retrieved 7-15.
  4. Bacon, Elaine C. The Chadbourne Family in America: A Genealogy, 1994.

External links

43°13′05″N 70°48′43″W / 43.21792°N 70.81206°W / 43.21792; -70.81206

Rivers of Maine by drainage system
Bay of Fundy
Passamaquoddy Bay
Saint John River Watershed
Casco Bay
Fore River Watershed
Presumpscot River Watershed
Others
Gulf of Maine
Blue Hill Bay
(Union River Watershed)
Chandler Bay
Dennys Bay
Englishman Bay
Frenchman Bay
Harrington Bay
Little River Watershed
Machias Bay
(Machias River Watershed)
Mousam River Watershed
Narraguagus Bay
(Narraguagus River Watershed)
Pleasant Bay
(Pleasant River Watershed)
Piscataqua River Watershed
Sheepscot River Watershed
Wohoa Bay
Others
Merrymeeting Bay
Androscoggin River Watershed
Kennebec River Watershed
Muscongus Bay
Saint George River Watershed
Others
Penobscot Bay
Penobscot River Watershed
Others
Saco Bay
Saco River Watershed
Others
Categories: