Dan splashed water in the air with his paddle. "Do you think you could drink this water, there is no salt."
Johnny reached down and touched the cold water with his hand. One could see clear to the bottom. "I wonder if there are any factories or such upstream still dumping right into the river, there shouldn't be.... but..."
"Or the old fashioned illegal hook up to a storm drain from a home by the river," Daniel added. "You know what those people are like in the town of Milton."
The river was about thirty meandering miles from the source to the Atlantic Ocean. The Neponset River is used as the southern boundary of the City of Boston, passing through the neighborhoods of Readville, Hyde Park, Mattapan and Dorchester, and forms the northern border of the city of Quincy. In addition, the Neponset touches the towns of Foxborough, Walpole, Sharon, Norwood, Canton, Stoughton, Westwood, Dedham, and Milton.
The watery way was widening out and they could see River Street to the north through the trees and bushes and tall grass and rocks. There are lots of rocks along the Neponset River, the area was under a mile or so of ice about ten thousand years ago during an Ice Age. Apparently there were lots of loose rocks in the ice from moving back and forth over the Earth. As the ice melted, down came all the loose granite unto the area of Eastern Massachusetts and the Neponset River basin.
"To the north is the parking lot and back of the building were I went for my Boy Scouts meetings when I was twelve to about fourteen," Johnny said pointing at a structure through a chain link fence. The trolley tracks were now on the southern bank of the river. The water flow seemed to slow, but the men could still just drift along and simply guide the boat. Overhead the sun gleamed and was shining through the many trees along both sides of the river.
"I remember how much I liked the woods craft and exploring aspect of activities in the Boy Scouts," Johnny mused. "After all the years of Catholic education at Saint Greg's, with the emphasis on reading, writing, adding.... I still don't know the multiplication tables."
"Nor do I," said Dan.
"I can sing the song I learned in second grade," Daniel queried. "That might help."
The men got out because there was an impassible section by boat at the bridge to Milton at Central Avenue. On with the back packs, which were lighter still, and canoe over head, they walked across the street when the coast was clear of cars or trucks. A big orange trolley clanged a bell as it crossed the same road to their right.
The falling waters of the Neponset River in this very area provided the energy for the country's first water-powered grist mill, gunpowder mill, paper mill and the Revere Copper Company, among others.
The upper stretch of the Neponset River, in Foxborough, Walpole and Norwood, is steeply sloped, dropping about 228 feet over its first 12 miles, and so the earliest years of the Industrial Revolution brought the Neponset to prominence.
In 1635, a man named Israel Stoughton built the first dam on the Neponset (only the second dam in the entire New World) for his grist mill. It was the first of three mills for flour, gunpowder and paper making. The water power was used to turn large wheels and stones to crush wheat into flour and such.
Back into the water the three went. Down to the sea in ships, indeed.
"So we have had industrial workers in this area for over three hundred years," Dan said. "A lot of work, a lot of power taken out of the river."
The river's recorded history begins in 1619 when Native Americans traveled down the Neponset River to Thompson's Island, where they traded furs with English settlers.
"Before Europeans arrived," Johnny opined, "the area was inhabited by Neanderthal tribes. Evidence of habitation along the Neponset River also includes the Middle Archaic (circa 5000 BC) at sites such as Green Hill near the Blue Hills. "If the Neanderthals could see us now."
"I don't think they can," Dan replied. "They are trapped in your imagination."
Daniel recited some pertinent facts about this hub of colonial industrial activity:
"In 1765, a chocolate mill was established by Dr. James Baker and Irish immigrant John Hannon (later known as Walter Baker & Company producing Baker's Chocolate) in the Lower Mills section of Dorchester, and in 1770 Daniel Vose's Wholesale Shipping Warehouses at the second Milton Town Landing at Lower Mills were at the peak of their operation." He took a deep breath. And a swig from a can.
"Ship building and commercial shipping were the major river industries at the estuary. In 1773, George Clark built a paper mill on remnants of Trescott's Lumber Mill, which became the Tileston and Hollingsworth Paper Mill in 1836. In 1826, the river became the terminus of the Granite Railway, the first commercial railway in the United States."
"As a boy I used to smell chocolate down near this part of the river. When the factory whistle blew at 4:30 pm I was supposed to head home," Johnny related. I remember once, down by the railroad tracks, some bold teens broke open a railroad freight car with cocoa beans for Baker Chocolate. The full sized beans were in rough sacks and someone ripped the bag open. I tasted a chocolate bean and it was bitter."
"Did you spit it out and throw it in the river?" one of the others asked.
"Could we grow chocolate plants on the banks of the Neponset River?" Johnny asked. "I don't think we are warm enough around here."
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