The Farmington Canal crossed rivers, hills, roads, and woodlands, and boats traveling its length passed through 28 locks to compensate for changes in elevation. Its most impressive engineering feature was the Farmington Aqueduct, which carried canal boats across the Farmington River in a wooden trough 280 feet long, six feet deep, and 14 feet wide, supported by two huge abutments at each end and six massive sandstone piers rising 40 feet from the solid rock of the river bed. A six foot wide wooden platform along the top of the piers served as a towpath for horses dragging boats through the aqueduct’s waterway, and crossing the river so high in the air was terrifying for both man and beast. After the canal was abandoned in 1848, the aqueduct fell into disrepair and the wooden structure eventually collapsed into the river. In the 1880’s, two piers were dismantled and their stones reused in local building construction, and the remaining four piers were destroyed in Connecticut’s 1955 flood. Today, the remains of the two abutments on either side of the river and the large stone base of one pier on the eastern riverbank are still visible.

Photo: Alan M. Perrie

Photo: Alan M. Perrie