New Hampshire

Canal History

From Nobel Whitford’s 1905 history of New York’s canals;

The canals of New Hampshire were constructed between the years 1812 and 1837 and were designed to furnish a means of getting around the falls of the Merrimac River and to render the river navigable. These canals together with the canal at Lowell, Mass., around the Pawtucket falls made the Merrimac navigable from Concord, N.H., to the sea, for boats drawing three and one-half feet of water. This whole distance is more than one hundred miles.

Canal Groups and Organizations

Major Repositories and Archives

Canal Index Pages

The “canal index” project is an on-going project of the ACS to document canal sites. Most of the information is from the 1970-1990 time period, however new pages are being added. Feel free to contribute to this project by submitting a form.

Note: Canals in blue and underlined have index sheets which are accessible by double clicking on the hyperlink.  Canals listed in green below do not yet have index sheets.  They are listed here to make the list more complete.  It is intended to add index sheets for them in the future.

Please note that many of these are the actual pages done in the early 1970s.  Changes have occurred since and there are some inaccuracies in the information on the pages.

Note: Canals in blue and underlined have index sheets which are accessible by double clicking on the hyperlink.

• Never completed canals connecting to the Connecticut River   
• Merrimack River Canals (north to south)
  • Sewall’s Falls (north of Concord) (west bank)
  • Bow Canal, Garvins Falls (now a power dam) (west bank)
  • Hooksett Falls (now a power dam) (west bank)
  • Blodgets Canal (Amoskeag Canal) ( in Manchester) (east bank)
    • Page 1
    • Page 2
    • Page 3
  • Union Canals
    • Merrills Falls (at Granite St. bridge in Manchester) (east bank)
    • Griffins Falls (east bank)
      • Page 1
      • Page 2
    • Shorts Falls (at I-293 bridge) (east bank)
    • Goffs Falls (at railroad bridge) (middle of river)
    • Cohas Falls (Coos Falls) (west side of island)
    • Moors Falls (east bank)
    • Cromwells Falls (west bank)
• Mine Falls Park NH
• Mine Falls
• Nashua Canal

 Wilder Canal (White River Falls Canal or Olcutt’s Falls) (Actually in New Hampshire)

Revised 10/15/2023