Charles River

Discussion 13 posts |  Only members can post. Join?

About Charles River

Welcome to the Charles River Group.
I take my fair share of pictures on the Charles, mostly near my Waltham home.

Please share your photos of the Charles.

Here is some Charles River History from Wikipedia.org:

The Charles River is a small, relatively short Massachusetts river that separates Boston from Cambridge and Charlestown.

It is fed by some 80 brooks and streams, and several major aquifers, as it flows snakelike for 80 miles, starting at Echo Lake in Hopkinton, through 58 cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts, before emptying into Boston Harbor.
Its watershed contains 33 lakes and ponds, mostly manmade. Despite the river's length, and relatively large drainage area (308 square miles), its source is only 26 miles from its mouth, and the river drops only 350 feet from source to sea. It is the most densely populated river basin in New England.

The river's earlier name, before the English, was Quinobequin (meandering), and it was used by Native Americans for local transportation and fishing, and as part of the way from southeastern Massachusetts to northern New England.

Captain John Smith gave the river its current English name in honor of Charles I of England, his reigning monarch. Subsequent European settlers harnessed the river for industrialization, and by 1640 entrepreneurs on the Neponset River had diverted its water to power their mills.


Waltham was the site of the first factory in America, built by Francis Cabot Lowell in 1814, and by the 19th Century, the Charles River was one of the most industrialized areas in the United States. Its hydropower soon fueled many mills and factories. By the century's end, 20 dams had been built across the river, mostly to generate power for industry. An 1875 government report listed 43 mills along the 9.5-mile tidal estuary from Watertown Dam to Boston Harbor.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/therivercharles/