Well good day to you all ,It has been a long while since my last installment of mind chum .I have been a bit of a slacker and for that I do apologize.

I have been reintroduced to one of my long time hobbies of photography, courtesy of my lovely wife Lisa. Todays chum is brought to you by the planners of the city of Holyoke Mass. Holyoke, not unlike Lowell ,mass. or Lawrence was laid out and designed as a city for manufacturing of various goods and services.

Located on the vast Connecticut river the cities planners wanted to use the power of the river for mills, lots of mills. This would require a dam of considerable length and strength as well.

Construction of an earth and timber crib dam was started in 1847 and was doomed from the start .You see the Connecticut river is a huge river and has the title of longest river in New England .At 410 miles in length it is forms the border between New Hampshire and Vermont .

Now earth and timber dams have proven to be problematic in the past due to the nature of materials used .Contractors hired that had little engineering experience also had a lot to do with the premature failures of these structures. The original dam did not last even one whole day before it was washed away.

Located on the falls section of South Hadley ,Mass. The area had a huge appeal to native Vermonter George Ewing He saw a city of industry and formed the Hadley Falls company.

Construction of a replacement dam of granite block and timber was started almost immediately after the failure of the first dam Finally finished in the 1870's ,the city was on its way to become one of this regions industrial giants.

The city of Holyoke is known as "The paper City" its reputation for fine quality printing and writing papers was second to none .In the years after the construction of the canals buildings went up by the tens of dozens ,what remains to day are the scraps .many have been lost to vandalism and simple neglect.

I found all of this out with ah innocent posting on social media detailing a Dam tour and walk describing the canal system and how the Hadley falls company distributed the water rights and usage to all of the mills. A very profitable venture for the founders indeed .

The present dam is constructed of hundreds of granite blocks very carefully fitted and anchored to the bed of the river At over 2000 feet in length and a height of thirty feet it has the very important job of controlling the rivers flow.

I was on the South Hadley side of the river about one month ago with record high water from all of the spring rains .the river when flowing at capacity is very impressive indeed. The library in South Hadley was built on the sight of a former paper mill and is located right at the edge of the falls. It is a beautiful library.

In the early eighties a rubber pneumatic bladder system was installed to control the flow of the river over the crest of the dam, this replaced the old board and batten system of controlling the height of the dam. Which if you have ever seen men on a barge installing these you get a new found respect for dangerous work.

Inside the dam the tour group was split into two groups.one of the features of this dam is the fish elevator ,which aids in the American Shads ability to return to their spawning beds Very clever and ingenious way of getting the fish from point A to point B. And we got to witness it in operation.

The other aspect of the dam is power generation the pictures I have posted are from inside the power house which contains two of the three generating stations .This installation is recent from 2015 and creates close to 23.000 H.P. A flow pipe some thirty feet in diameter feeds all three turbines.

In addition there is an aqua duct system the directs the flow of water to the canal system which is all gravity fed, one canal flows into the next and into the next before exhausting the stream back to the river. Individual mills had flow meters ,weirs and gates installed to determine the water usage. Several mills still have generating stations located inside of them, contributing clean green power to the grid.

I asked the question of how it was all set up for the mills back in the day. Water usage was determined by what is called a Parshall flume, this is basically a venturi. Which is a restricted measured opening that increases the flow of matter, be it air or a fluid. And allows the exact measures to flow in a given period of time to be determined. Payments to the Holyoke water and power company was paid in silver bullion once a year based on closely estimated water usage. The building that housed the silver vaults still stands and is a very ornate building as one would expect.

All in all it was a great day to learn some historical facts about one of the areas industrial giants Holyoke, Mass. I hope you all have enjoyed this installment of chum 21 ,and until the next time ,thanks for reading Bruce. [Infinity] [Mill buildings] [Holyoke dam] [Data plate] [Powerhouse] [Holyoke dam] [Spillway]

Bruce Caron
Educator/Instructor/Technician
Robison Service Company
Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

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