Mill River (Northampton, Massachusetts)

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The Mill River Dam ( Dam Mill River, Williamsburg Dam ) was a dam in the " Williamsburg Hills " in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, USA. It failed on 16 May in 1874 and taught at considerable damage.

The Mill River Dam dammed the River Mill River ( Mill Creek ), a tributary of the Connecticut River. In the subjacent industrialized valley there were many mills and factories. The dam was built in 1865, a rockfill dam with an inner core of masonry. It was 13.1 meters high and nine years old; the reservoir contained 379,000 cubic meters of water when he broke. The water level was at the time of the breaking dam failure about 1.2 m below the dam crest.

The cause of the dam failure was leachate, the material from the dam ausspülte ( "piping " ), the bank brought to slip and eventually brought down the core wall. The time is specified with 7:20 clock (EST ).

The Jam Master George Cheney could watch the dam burst and riding a horse warn downstream residents. The four miles to the first place he lay back in 15 minutes, by which he was the tidal wave 10 minutes ahead. Any damage extended to the field with a length of 11 kilometers downstream of the dam. Four places between Williamsburg and Northampton were destroyed with their factories or were affected: Haydenville, Leeds, Skinnerville and Florence. The total number of deaths is given in the various sources 138, 143, 144 or 200. 750 people were left homeless, and the material damage amounted to more than 1 million U.S. dollars. Among the victims were 43 children under ten years.

It was the earliest recorded dams failure in the United States.