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"Mill River Calamity" from "Harper's Weekly"

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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This etching depicts the route of the flood that devastated the villages of Williamsburg, Skinnerville, Haydenville and Leeds, Massachusetts. The floodwave dumped most of its contents (including several dozen bodies) on the Florence meadows, shown at the bottom of the picture. In the upper lefthand corner, in the town of Goshen, are visible two reservoirs which were part of the network of reservoirs owned by the same mill owners who built the failed Williamsburg reservoir. It was these waterpower systems that made New England manufacturing so successful. Three weeks after the flood "Harpers Weekly" published an article and several detailed pictures of the disaster for its large national audience.

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