44
��Tht Middlesex Canal.
��and practical education which they were built to secure, are to be a lasting mon- ument to his foresight, his patriotism, and his eloquent persuasion."
Mr. Russell said : " To him the agri- culture of the Commonwealth owes a debt that can never be paid ; the records of our board are a monument of his good works more enduring than brass. And, sir, in view of his venerable years, so lightly borne, his interest in all the active affairs of men, and his con- tinued powers of social enjoyment, I may well repeat the wish of the poet Horace, expressed in one of his invoca- tions to the Emperor Augustus : ' Serus in ccelum redeas.' "
��Major Poore said : " Mr. President, I am confident that the distinguished gentlemen around these tables will long remember to - night, and recall with pleasure its varied homages to Colonel Wilder, thankful that we have so pure a shrine, so bright an oracle, as the com- mon property of all who reverence virtue, admire manhood, or aspire to noble deeds. Succeeding years will not dim the freshness of Colonel Wilder's fame ; and the more frequently we drink at this fountain, the sweeter we shall find its waters.
' You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.' "
��THE MIDDLESEX CANAL.
��By Lorin L.
The curious traveller may still trace with little difficulty the line of the old Middlesex canal, with here and there a break, from the basin at Charlestown to its junction with the Merrimac at Middlesex village. Like an accusing ghost, it never strays far from the Boston & Low- ell Railroad, to which it owes its untimely end.
At Medford, the Woburn sewer runs along one portion of its bed, the Spot pond watei'-pipes an- other. The tow-path, at one point, marks the course of the defunct Mystic Valley Railroad ; at others, it has been metamorphosed into sec- tions of the highway ; at others, it survives as a cow-path or woodland lane ; at Wilmington, the stone sides of a lock have become the lateral walls of a dwelling-house cellar.
Judging the canal by the pecuniary recompense it brought its projectors.
��Dame, A.M.
it must be admitted a dismal failure ; yet its inception was none the less a comprehensive, far-reaching scheme, which seemed to assure a future of ample profits and great public use- fulness. Inconsiderable as this work may appear compared with the modern achievements of engineering, it was, for the times, a gigantic undertaking, beset with difficulties scarcely conceivable to-day. Boston was a small town of about twenty thousand inhabitants ; Medford, Wo- burn, and Chelmsford were insignif- icant villages ; and Lowell was as yet unborn, while the valley of the Mer- rimac, northward into New Hamp- shire, supported a sparse agricultural population. But the outlook was encouraging. It was a period of rapid growth and marked improve- ments. The subject of closer com- munication with the interior early became a vital question. Turnpikes,
�� �
