Historical Marker Mania: Volume 2

In Bostonist’s experience, the southeast corner of Foss Park, at the corner of Broadway and McGrath Highway in Somerville, serves two purposes: In the afternoons of fair weather days, it is the gathering place for Somervillians of all ages wishing to play team sports on the park’s many fields. In the early mornings of all days, rain and shine, it is the gathering place for immigrant day laborers, who wait to be picked up by contractors for whatever construction or landscaping work may be on the bill in the cities and towns north of Boston that day. We imagine that for both of these groups, it is easy to ignore the unobtrusive stone marker (pictured at right) reminding park users that the mighty Middlesex Canal once came through the area. OK, it probably wasn’t that mighty, being only three or four feet deep and thirty feet wide, but it was a fairly exciting innovation at the beginning of the 19th century. It connected Lowell Chelmsford (now part of Lowell - Bostonist failed to mention this initially, but our loyal readers kept us honest - see the comments)) and the Merrimack River to Charlestown and Boston, allowing a flourishing trade in, you know, whatever Lowell Chelmsford had that Charlestown needed. Actually, it was a pretty big deal, because it brought timber and other goods from as far away as Concord, New Hampshire, to the shipyards and factories of Boston. From the time it was completed, in 1803, until railroads made it obsolete in the 1850s, the Middlesex Canal was crucial to the economy of eastern Massachusetts and probably helped our nation to become the mighty superpower it is today (or at least to defeat the hated British in the War of 1812).

There is, we think, something pleasing about concrete connections between our region’s present and past. Bostonist, at least, enjoys thinking about a time when getting cargo from Sullivan Square to (what is now) Lowell in twelve hours was considered tremendously efficient. We also like the idea of horses towing barges down Broadway in East Somerville.