In the late 1800s, industries on Falls Island and along Water Street in Canton worked in collaboration rather than independently, including Nathaniel and Barzillai Hodskin's pocket furnace, foundry, and machine shop, the Baxter Foundary, and J. Henry Rushton's boat shop. The third dam held back water from a channel running parallel to Water Street just east of the main East Channel of the Grasse River, with Judd Ruston's factory on one side and the Canton Electric Light and Power Company building on the other, but fluctuating water levels made electrical production difficult until Canton connected with the Hannawa Falls and Colton power plants; the pond created by the dam was also used for ice harvesting. J. Henry Rushton, who lived from 1843 to 1906, built canoes, rowboats, guideboats, skiffs, sailboats, and a few steam and motor boats in a large three-story factory originally at State Street and Water Street, and in the 1880s and 1890s became well known for practical, economical, and durable designs that he successfully promoted and marketed. In the early 1900s, his business in sport and leisure water craft was challenged by the growing popularity of the bicycle and by a national economic downturn; the Rushton Boat Shop closed in 1917, eleven years after his death, and in 1926 the building was sold to a farmer who tore it down and used the lumber to build a very large dairy barn. The principal industries on Falls Island were the grist mill, sash and blind factory, and sawmill, though at various times axes and scythes were made there, furniture was crafted, caskets were constructed, and a tannery begun by Elias C. Page later expanded to a Water Street lot on the east side of the river. As larger industrial centers developed, mass production replaced these local businesses, and when chemicals supplanted hemlock bark, Canton's tanneries also went out of business.