Baldwin Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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The Nashua Manufacturing Company received a charter in the 1820s to make cloth and to trade near the Nashua River. Three miles from where the company's mills were being built, a dam was constructed at Mine Falls. A power canal was hand-dug under the supervision of James Baldwin. His idea was to change the course of the water from the river, through the guard gates, and into the canal. By the time the water reached the mills, it had enough velocity to turn the waterwheels under the building. The gatehouse was constructed in 1886 during the presidency of Grover Cleveland. At the time it was a state-of-the-art improvement over the smaller gates that once occupied the canal. A Lowell, Massachusetts contractor, L.F. Kittrege, hired men to build five new lift gates that would be protected by the brick walls of the gatehouse. The gatehouse, along with the dam and canal, is a part of the Nashua Manufacturing Company Historic District; they are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The gatehouse was built for practicality, not architectural refinement. Its interior contains the machinery that reflects the transition from hydro power to electric power. James Fowle Baldwin (April 29, 1782 – May 20, 1862) was an early American civil engineer who worked with his father and brothers on the Middlesex Canal, surveyed and designed the Boston and Lowell Railroad and the Boston and Albany Railroad, the first Boston water supply from Lake Cochituate, and many other early engineering projects. He was the first president of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers and served one term as a Senator from Suffolk County to the Massachusetts Senate, then served as a Boston Water Commissioner.
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Cache is large enough for trackables and small swag.
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