Connecticut River
View from Mount Sugarloaf in South Deerfield on the Pioneer Valley and Connecticut River
Catchment area of the river
Haze above the Bissell Bridge
Founders Bridge with the Bulkeley Bridge further upstream
The Oxbow, Connecticut River near Northampton, in 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, along the border between this state and Vermont southward through the western part of Massachusetts and central Connecticut, to eventually culminate in Old Saybrook in the Long Iceland sound. It has a length of 655 km, and the catchment area of 29,125 km ². The average annual river discharge is 556 m³ / s
The river rises as a mountain stream in the Third Connecticut Lake and Fourth Connecticut Lake in the state of New Hampshire. The 660 km long river which flows through the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut to the south, and finally empties into the Long Iceland sound. Thanks to numerous dams and locks it is navigable for ships to Hartford. The river is subject to tidal Windsor Locks, about 95 km upstream of the estuary.
The Connecticut River drains a portion of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Green Mountains in Vermont to the south, and the eastern part of the Berkshires in Massachusetts. In the western part of Massachusetts, the Connecticut River flows through the wide Pioneer Valley. On the Connecticut River are among other cities Northampton, Springfield and Hartford.
The river carries a large amount of silt with it, especially when the snow melts in the spring. This entrained material produced a sandbar near the confluence with the Long Iceland Sound, which historically meant a major obstacle to shipping. Mainly for this reason, the Connecticut River one of the few major rivers in New England, near which the mouth was not an important port city. The estuary of the river and its tidal flats are one of the 1759 wetlands of international importance which are protected by the Ramsar Convention.
The name of the river is quinetucket a French corruption of the Algonquian word meaning long Gezeitenfluß.
History
The first European to see the river, was in 1614 the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block. As a result of these explorations gave the Dutch the river the name Fresh River. 1623 they built a fortified trading post, Fort Huys de Goede Hoop, from which then later Hartford, Connecticut developed. It was the north-eastern part of the colony of New Netherland.
The first English colonist, whose presence is recorded on the river, was 1632 Edward Winslow of the Plymouth Colony. 1633 established the British on the site of present-day Windsor a trading post. As the number of English colonists increased, leaving the Dutch in 1654 by their company from 1654. The Fort at Number 4, now Charlestown, New Hampshire, was until the end of the French and Indian Wars in 1763 the northernmost British settlement along the river. The Treaty of Paris ( 1783), the 1783 American Revolutionary War ended, the new frontier laid down between New Hampshire and the region, which became the province of Canada. Because the definition of the boundary, which included the north-western swell flow of Connecticut, apply to a number of rivers, a border dispute led to the short existence of the Indian Stream Republic, which consisted 1832-1835.
First, put on the wide, fertile valley settlers agriculturally active, but the amount of water and the slope of the river contributed to the rise of manufacturing industry in the valley at. The largest single slope with an altitude difference of 18 m is located in Holyoke. To other economic centers, Windsor and Hartford in Connecticut developed, Springfield, Massachusetts, Lebanon in New Hampshire and Brattleboro in Vermont.
1829 Enfield Falls Canal was built to flat spots on the Connecticut River to bypass. The purpose-built locks gave the town of Windsor Locks, Connecticut her name.
End of the 19th century, the river was used for rafts of felled timber tribes from the north, mainly from the catchment area of the Nullhegan River in Essex County in Vermont. The large Flößungen every spring were hired after 1915, because the owners of pleasure boats complained about the dangers to shipping.
1953 was closed in response to severe flooding at the confluence of the Connecticut River Flood Control Compact. The agreement was signed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1997, the river has been designated as American Heritage River.
Tributaries
The major tributaries of the Connecticut River are, from the mouth to the source:
Crossings
The Connecticut River is a major obstacle to traffic between the West and the East New England dar. It is crossed by several major roads, including the Northeast Corridor from Amtrak, the highways Interstate 95 (Connecticut Turnpike ), Interstate 90 (Massachusetts Turnpike ) and Interstate 89 Interstate 91, the route largely in north-south direction following the course of the river, the river crosses once again in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Species of fish in the Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is 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 trying to make the Atlantic salmon at home again; this was more than 200 years in the river no longer exists. To enable these fish their natural migration upriver in the spring to their spawning grounds, fish ladders and other facilities were built.
The majority of the Town Pittsburg, which houses the headwaters of the river is completed by the Connecticut Lakes, a chain of several deep lakes with cool water, where lake trout and Atlantic salmon live.
The river itself also brook trout, rainbow trout, brown trout, Alosa, smallmouth bass, striped bass, carp, catfish and several other species are native.