Connecticut River

Connecticut River
View from Mount Sugarloaf near South Deerfield of the Pioneer Valley and the Connecticut River
Data
Water code	US :  206425
location	New Hampshire , Vermont , Massachusetts , Connecticut (USA)
River system	Connecticut River
origin	Third Connecticut Lake 45 ° 14 ′ 15 ″  N , 71 ° 12 ′ 0 ″  W.
Source height	667  m
muzzle	at Old Saybrook in the Long Island Sound Coordinates: 41 ° 16 ′ 20 ″  N , 72 ° 19 ′ 59 ″  W 41 ° 16 ′ 20 ″  N , 72 ° 19 ′ 59 ″  W.
Mouth height	0  m
Height difference	667 m
Bottom slope	1 ‰
length	655 km
Catchment area	29,125 km²
Drain	MNQ MQ MHQ	90 m³ / s 522 m³ / s 2700 m³ / s
Left tributaries	Ammonoosuc River , Ashuelot River , Chicopee River
Right tributaries	Ottauquechee River , White River , West River , Deerfield River , Westfield River , Farmington River
Big cities	Hartford CT , Springfield MA
Small towns	Brattleboro , Northampton MA
Navigable	to Hartford CT
Catchment area of ​​the river
Haze above the Bissell Bridge
Founders Bridge with the Bulkeley Bridge further upstream
The Oxbow, Connecticut River at Northampton, 1836, painting by Thomas Cole

The Connecticut River is the longest river in New England in the United States .

It flows from the Connecticut Lakes in northern New Hampshire , south along the border between that state and Vermont , through western Massachusetts and central Connecticut , to finally flow into Long Island Sound at Old Saybrook . It has a length of 655 km and the catchment area covers 29,125 km². The average annual runoff is 556 m³ / s.

Thanks to numerous dams and locks, it is navigable for ships as far as Hartford . The river is subject to the tides until Windsor Locks , about 95 km above the mouth.

The Connecticut River drains part of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Green Mountains of Vermont to the south, as well as the eastern portion of the Berkshires in Massachusetts. In western Massachusetts, the Connecticut River flows through the broad Pioneer Valley . On the Connecticut River are the cities of Northampton , Springfield and Hartford , among others .

The river carries a large amount of silt , especially when the snowmelts in spring. This carried material created a sandbar near the confluence with Long Island Sound, which historically has been a significant barrier to shipping. Mainly for this reason, the Connecticut River is one of the few major rivers in New England that has not developed a major port city near its mouth. The river's estuary and its tidal flats form one of the 1759 wetlands of international importance protected by the Ramsar Convention .

The name of the river is a French corruption of the Algonquin word quinetucket and means long tidal river .

history

The first European to see the river was the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block in 1614 . As a result of this exploration, the Dutch named the river Fresh River . In 1623 they built a fortified trading post, Fort Huys de Goede Hoop , which later became Hartford , Connecticut. It was the northeastern part of the Nieuw Nederland colony .

The first English colonist whose presence at the river is recorded was Edward Winslow of Plymouth Colony in 1632 . In 1633 the English established a trading post on what is now Windsor . As the number of English colonists increased, the Dutch abandoned their business in 1654. The fort at Number 4 , now Charlestown , New Hampshire, was the northernmost English settlement on the river until the end of the French and Indian Wars in 1763. The Treaty of Paris (1783) , which ended the American Revolutionary War in 1783 , established the new border between New Hampshire and what became the province of Canada . Because the definition of the boundary, which included Connecticut's most northwestern headwaters, applies to several waterways, a boundary dispute led to the brief existence of the Indian Stream Republic , which existed from 1832 to 1835.

Initially, the wide, fertile valley attracted agricultural settlers, but the amount of water and the gradient of the river contributed to the rise of the manufacturing industry in the valley. The largest single drop with a height difference of 18 m is at Holyoke . Windsor and Hartford in Connecticut, Springfield in Massachusetts, Lebanon in New Hampshire and Brattleboro in Vermont developed into other economic centers .

In 1829 the Enfield Falls Canal was built to bypass flats on the Connecticut River. The locks built for this gave the city of Windsor Locks , Connecticut, its name.

In the late 19th century, the river was used to raft felled logs from the north, particularly from the Nullhegan River basin in Essex County , Vermont. The big rafts every spring were stopped after 1915 because the owners of pleasure boats complained about the dangers for shipping.

In 1953, in response to severe flooding on the river, the Connecticut River Flood Control Compact was closed. The agreement was signed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1997 the river was designated as the American Heritage River .

Tributaries

The major tributaries of the Connecticut River are, from mouth to source:

No.	Surname	Bank side of the confluence	Catchment area in km²	location
01	Black Hall River	Left		CT
02	Falls River	right		CT
03	Eightmile River	Left	156	CT
04	Deep river	right		CT
05	Salmon River	Left	388	CT
06	Mattabesset River	right	269	CT
07	Hockanum River	Left	210	CT
08	Park River	right	200	CT
09	Farmington River	right	1580	CT
10	Scantic River	Left	292	CT
11	Westfield River	right	1339	MA
12	Mill River (Springfield)	Left		MA
13	Chicopee River	Left	1870	MA
14th	Manhan River	right	271	MA
15th	Mill River (Northampton)	right		MA
16	Fort River	Left		MA
17th	Mill River (Hatfield)	right		MA
18th	Mill River (Amherst)	Left		MA
19th	Sawmill River	Left		MA
20th	Deerfield River	right	1702	MA
21st	Fall River	right	92	MA
22nd	Millers River	Left	1000	MA
23	Ashuelot River	Left	1101	NH
24	West River	right	1083	VT
25th	Partridge Brook	Left		NH
26th	Cold River	Left	261	NH
27	Saxtons River	right	200	VT
28	Williams River	right	300	VT
29	Black River	right	517	VT
30th	Little Sugar River	Left	79	NH
31	Sugar River	Left	704	NH
32	Blow-me-down Brook	Left		NH
33	Ottauquechee River	right	571	VT
34	Mascoma River	Left	499	NH
35	White River	right	1818	VT
36	Mink Brook	Left		NH
37	Ompompanoosuc River	right	348	VT
38	Waits River	right	369	VT
39	Oliverian Brook	Left		NH
40	Wells River	right	253	VT
41	Ammonoosuc River	Left	1011	NH
42	Stevens River	right	125	VT
43	Passumpsic River	right	1298	VT
44	Johns River	Left	195	NH
45	Israel River	Left	346	NH
46	Upper Ammonoosuc River	Left	650	NH
47	Paul Stream	right	148	VT
48	Nulhegan River	right	387	VT
49	Simms Stream	Left		NH
50	Mohawk River	Left	143	NH
51	Hall's Stream	Left	228	NH
52	Indian Stream	Left	182	NH
53	Perry Stream	Left	77	NH

Crossings

The Connecticut River is a major obstacle to traffic between the West and the East in New England. It is crossed by several major roads, including the Northeast Corridor of Amtrak , highways Interstate 95 ( Connecticut Turnpike ), Interstate 90 ( Massachusetts Turnpike ) and Interstate 89 . The Interstate 91 , the route in north-south direction largely follows the course of the river, crossed the river once in Connecticut and once again in Massachusetts.

Fish species in the Connecticut River

The Connecticut River is a habitat for several species of migratory fish , including Alosa sapidissima , American eel , Morone saxatilis, and sea ​​lamprey . The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is working to bring the Atlantic salmon back home; this was no longer present in the river for more than 200 years. To enable these fish to migrate naturally upriver to their spawning grounds in spring, fish ladders and other facilities have been built.

Most of the town of Pittsburg , where the upper reaches of the river is located, is filled by the Connecticut Lakes , a chain of several deep, cool-water lakes that are home to lake trout and Atlantic salmon .

Brook trout , rainbow trout , brown trout , alosa , black bass , rock perch , carp , catfish and various other species are native to the river itself .

literature

• Edwin Monroe Bacon: The Connecticut River and the Valley of the Connecticut: Three Hundred and Fifty Miles from Mountain to Sea . GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1906, F12.C7 B2 in the LCC .
• Edmund Thomas Delany: The Connecticut River: New England's Historic Waterway . The Globe Pequot Press, 1983, ISBN 978-0-87106-980-1 .
• Walter R. Hard: The Connecticut (Rivers of America) . Rinehart & Company, Inc, New York, Toronto 1947, ISBN 0-932691-27-7 , F12.C7 H3 in the LCC .
• Randolph A. Roth, The Democratic Dilemma: Religion, Reform, and the Social Order in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, 1791-1850 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2003, ISBN 978-0-521-31773-3 .

Web links

Commons : Connecticut River  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

• Connecticut River Watershed Council

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dorothy A. DEBISSCHOP: The Canal at Windsor Locks ( English ) Connecticut Heritage. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 9, 2011. 
2. ^ Wheeler, Scott: The History of Logging in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom ( English ). The Kingdom Historical, September 2002.
3. ^ Connecticut River Flood Control Compact. (PDF; 34 kB) Connecticut River Valley Flood Control Commission, September 8, 1953, accessed May 22, 2020 . 
4. ^ Smith College