Views of original Bucklin Pawtucket Property.
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worth the wait.
A
1999 view looking across the Pawtucket River, RI from the area of the historic
Slater Mill, the point of the start of the Industrial Revolution in
America, to the present Congregational Church and what was Bucklin land in
the 1600's.
Click on the thumbnails to
enlarge and enjoy them --- they have great detail for Bucklin historians.
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This is a truly remarkable
antique 1815 French lithograph (labeled
"Pawtucket Bridge" and "Pawtucket Falls") of the view from
the original Bucklin lands looking across the river toward the Slater
mills. (Click to enlarge to view the remarkable detail.) The men
fishing on the rocks in the foreground are standing on the 'fishing rocks"
of the Bucklins. The Grist Mill of James Bucklin would have been to the right,
out of the lithograph area.
Isn't it fun to imagine that the artist may have had actual Bucklins in the
drawing he made? Credit for obtaining for us a copy of this lithograph ,
as well as the drawing on the right below, goes to Spaulding House Research
Library.
The falls has a drop of 25 feet, although naturally there was a substantial
downwards slope in the river immediately above the falls. In 1718 a dam of
grave and stone was build at the natural falls to better harness the waterpower
for the use of mills at the site. The natural drop above the falls and how it
was harnessed can be seen in the first photo above on this page.
A 1999 view of the bridge
and falls area. The bridge is the present Main Street Bridge. The
grist mill of the early Bucklins stood out of the area of the photo, but on the
right side of the river bank. The Bucklin fishing rocks were in this area,
but
now covered over by bridge materials and the places where
mill factories later stood. To see where the 1747 grist mill of
James Bucklin stood in relation to the bridge of that day go to our page on the Grist Mill..
Map of original Bucklin lands in
Pawtucket --->
This
photo on the left is a view looking North from the
area of Bass Rock (Click
to enlarge, and also click on the drawing above of the Bucklin land to
view explanations of the area shown in this photo.) The tidal river area is
known as the Seekonk River. The area narrows to become the Pawtucket River
as you go northward toward the Pawtucket Falls. (Above the falls, the river is
known as the Blackstone River)
The right (East Bank) , as far as you can see in this photo, was William
Bucklin's land. The photo on the right is a cropped area of the photo on
the left. The place to which the red drawn arrow points, at the top of the cropped area of the picture, you will see a
long horizontal line which today is a concrete municipal landing. In Colonial times it was known as Bucklin's Landing, a good
place to land a boat from the tidal river instead of continuing northward
against the flowing Pawtucket River with its high banks..
Note the following picture, which looks South from Bass Rock and shows the
nature of the tidal river and why early ships used Providence
as a harbor (and one of the several reasons why William Bucklin's 600
acres were a prime piece of property).
