It was finished on the morning of
Nov. 16, 1848. A great crowd of ten thousand people collected on the
river-bank to witness the filling of the pond and closing of the gates.
At ten o'clock the gates were let down and the pond began to fill. The
massive foundation stones of the bulk-head at the west end began to move
under the great pressure. The water had risen to within two feet of the
top of the dam when the break began at about one hundred feet from the
east end and the structure tipped over and gave way. A massive wall of
water and moving timbers rose high in air, (a sight terrific to remember
by those who saw it), and with a mighty roar and sweep the great
structure went down the stream in ruins.
Great as this disaster was to the Company, there was no yielding to
discouragement. The work of reconstruction was begun at once and a
second dam of improved pattern was built upon the site and so strongly
constructed that it remains a part of the present dam. Eighteen years
later it was improved and strengthened by building a front extension, in
such a manner that the dam now has a sloping front, giving it the form
of a roof, both the old and the new structure being made absolutely
solid.
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