Pawtucket Falls

Pawtucket Falls is a name given to two distinct waterfalls, both located in the United States region of New England. One is located on the Blackstone River and the other along the Merrimack River. The name may derive from an Algonkian word meaning "waterfall".

Rhode Island

Pawtucket Falls is a waterfall at the end of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island near where it flows into the Seekonk River, a tidal extension of Narragansett Bay. The falls provided power for Samuel Slater’s cotton spinning mill, which was built in 1793 and is said to have been responsible for starting the Industrial Revolution in America.Fact|date=August 2007

Massachusetts

Pawtucket Falls is also the name of a waterfall on the Merrimack River at Lowell, Massachusetts. The waterfall and rapids below it drop a total of 32 feet in a little over a mile.Fact|date=August 2007

This location was used as a benchmark for delineating the Northern boundary of Massachusetts, which was frequently disputed between the Province of Massachusetts Bay and the Province of New Hampshire. The issue was finally resolved in 1740, when it was decreed that the boundary run along a curved line three miles from the river between the ocean and a point three miles north of Pawtucket Falls, where the river begins to turn north. From there a line was to be drawn due west.Franklin K. VanZandt, [http://www.msp.umb.edu/placereadings2.html Boundaries of the United States and the Several States] , USGS Bulletin 1212, 1966]

Etymology

"Pawtucket" is an Algonkian word meaning "at the falls in the river (tidal stream)".Fact|date=August 2007

See also

*List of place names in New England of aboriginal origin

References

External links

* [http://www.slatermill.org/html/pawtucket_falls.html Pawtucket Falls description] from [http://www.slatermill.org/ slatermill.org]