Ten Mile River
The Ten Mile River was the river of my misspent youth, even
though we got tantalizing glimpses of the Connecticut and Westfield
on trips to the western Massachusetts hinterlands to visit
grandparents, the Taunton on the way to the Cape, and the Blackstone
in Pawtucket. (Come to think of it, seeing a river was almost as
desirable as seeing railroad tracks.) Hands down, the Ten Mile was
the biggest and best riparian attraction of North Attleboro. Our
everyday experience of the Ten Mile, as we walked the 16 miles to
and from School St. School, easily trumped the fleeting and
infrequent sightings of more major rivers. It flowed right next to
McNally's store, under the convergence of Park and North Washington
Streets, and emerged beside another institution, the North End
Social Club. We always had to stop and watch it, unable to resist
the seductive hypnotism of moving water, noting the newest pieces of
jettisoned junk and an occasional crayfish.
So it was that in a fit of unbridled nostalgia it came to me to
photograph the entire river from every convenient access point, and,
even more horrifyingly, to inflict the results on the public via the
web. Since I've never had an original idea in my life, I can't
really take any credit for this, but neither, unfortunately, can I
convincingly lay the blame on Cav. He's been thinking of biking the
route of the Gee Whiz Line, and I'm sure this contributed heavily to
my flash of inspiration. But this is definitely a dilettante's
project. How hard could it be to drive around, take pictures with a
digital camera, and slap them onto a web page?
I didn't declare "road trip!" and grab the car keys. I didn't lie
down until the urge passed. When I realized that I didn't even know
exactly where the Ten Mile arose and ended, I went on-line to the
University of New Hampshire's library of digitized USGS
topographic maps, which refers to maps of around my birth date
as historic. I love maps. I anticipated a handsome payoff from my
visit to this purveyor of cartographic pornography, and sure enough,
I found the river's headwaters in an unnamed pond in Plainville,
about a mile north of Fuller's Dam, and followed it to Omega Pond in
Rumford, emptying into the Seekonk River. To push my luck, I went to
America's Running
Routes, where you can point and click to trace a route and the
software tells you how long it is, because something about "Ten
Mile" had always nagged at me. The map orgy ended abruptly when the
underlying Google Maps technology showed only ponds, no rivers. The
next best thing, a
MapQuest shortest-distance-avoid-highways driving route (well
within a dilettante's capacity), suggested that the Ten Mile would
be more aptly named the Fourteen and About a Quarter Mile River.
Even as the physical dimensions of the quest solidified, mission
creep set in. There are changes to the Ten Mile over time that I
find interesting, and I can think of dozens of boring anecdotes that
all occurred within a stone's throw of the river. Though I keep
saying "must ... control ... urge ... to blog" it seems highly
unlikely that I'll be able to resist this cheap, wretched
self-indulgence any longer. The camel has his nose under the tent,
the cat's out of the bag, the dogs of war are loosed, the die is
cast, I've crossed the Rubicon, and it's a slippery slope. The proof
is right before your eyes. Can Old Man Scanlon's Reality Show be far
behind?
In my day the Ten Mile was considered nasty, probably rightly, but
the upper reaches supported fishing good enough to keep a young
whippersnapper busy. Several government web sites describe its past,
current, and possible future states in excruciating detail: Rhode Island Rivers Council,
Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, and Southeastern
Regional Planning & Economic Development District. You'll note
that they all seem to have plagiarized freely from each other.
As it happens, I already have a Ten Mile photo off with which to
kick this project. It's from December, 2003, looking downstream from
the Balfour Park footbridge in Attleboro. The contrasting blue-grey
sky and setting sun somehow attracted me; there were clear signals
that the winter shortage of yellow photons was easing. Balfour Park
and its stretch of the river bring me good, if recent, memories.
It's where Mitt Romney made my granddaughters cry. My grandson
heaved armfuls of dehydrated catalpa beans off the bridge and we'd
watch them head to the ocean. Once we spied a muskrat cruising
up-river, and we saw the helicopter fly-over — hard to miss,
that was — at the 2007 POW-MIA Encampment.
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Project notes
February, 2008 had record rainfall in Boston, and both February and
March have had several single days of record rainfall. This bounty
is apparent in some of the February and March photographs.
The Ten Mile River Watershed
Council — they're new; they're serious (they have boats),
not slick; and they have the best map of the watershed I've
seen.
Another cooperative effort centered on the Ten Mile is the
Ten Mile River Watershed page at Charles Adler's Citizens for a
Sustainable Local Economy web site.
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Plainville
|
13 Mar 2008, Fuller St., upstream |
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13 Mar 2008, Fuller St., downstream |
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13 Mar 2008, Cooney Ave., upstream |
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13 Mar 2008, Cooney Ave., upstream |
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13 Mar 2008, Cooney Ave., downstream |
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North Attleboro
|
13 Mar 2008, Park St., upstream |
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13 Mar 2008, Park St., downstream |
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18 Feb 2008, Fisher St., upstream |
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18 Feb 2008, Fisher St., downstream |
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18 Feb 2008, Orne St. and E. Washington St. |
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18 Feb 2008, downstream under E. Washington St. |
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25 Apr 2009, E. Washington St. & Orne St. |
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25 Apr 2009, E. Washington St. & Orne St. |
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25 Apr 2009, Orne St., downstream |
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25 Apr 2009, E. Washington St., upstream |
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25 Apr 2009, E. Washington St., downstream |
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25 Apr 2009, Chestnut St., upstream |
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25 Apr 2009, Chestnut St., downstream |
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19 Feb 2008, Falls Pond spillway |
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19 Feb 2008, downstream |
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19 Feb 2008, Mt. Hope St., downstream |
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19 Feb 2008, Towne St., upstream |
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19 Feb 2008, Towne St., downstream |
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19 Feb 2008, Robinson Ave. |
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19 Feb 2008, Robinson Ave. and Cottage St. |
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19 Feb 2008, Freeman St., upstream |
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19 Feb 2008, Freeman St., downstream |
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Attleboro
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21 Feb 2008, Cedar Rd., upstream |
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21 Feb 2008, Cedar Rd., downstream |
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17 Apr 2009, West St., upstream |
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17 Apr 2009, West St., downstream |
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21 Feb 2008, River St., upstream |
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16 Mar 2008, River St., downstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Berwick Rd., Mechanic's Pond, upstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Berwick Rd., Mechanic's Pond, downstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Riverbank Rd., upstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Riverbank Rd. & former street, downstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Riverbank Rd. & former street, downstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Mechanic St., Mechanic's Pond former south outlet, upstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Mechanic St., Mechanic's Pond former south outlet, downstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Mechanic St., Mechanic's Pond north outlet, upstream |
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16 Mar 2008, Mechanic St., Mechanic's Pond north outlet, downstream |
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10 Mar 2008, Riverbank Rd. & Hayward St., downstream |
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16 Mar 2008, County St., upstream |
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16 Mar 2008, County St., downstream |
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09 Mar 2008, Wall St., upstream |
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09 Mar 2008, Wall St., downstream |
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10 Mar 2008, Lamb St., upstream |
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10 Mar 2008, Lamb St., downstream |
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14 Sep 2008, Thacher St., upstream |
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14 Sep 2008, Thacher St., downstream |
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10 Mar 2008, Sagamore Rd., Dodgeville Pond |
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10 Mar 2008, Lake Shore Dr. & Grant St., Dodgeville Pond |
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26 May 2008, Tiffany St., upstream |
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26 May 2008, Tiffany St., downstream |
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10 Mar 2008, Bridge St., upstream |
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10 Mar 2008, Bridge St., downstream |
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10 Mar 2008, Read St., Hebron Village Apartments |
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Pawtucket
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25 May 2010, Central Ave., upstream |
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25 May 2010, Central Ave., downstream |
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03 Apr 2008, Armistice Blvd., across the dam |
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03 Apr 2008, Armistice Blvd., upstream |
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03 Apr 2008, Armistice Blvd., downstream |
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Revision History
- 25 February 2008, revision 1.
- Initial publication.
- 05 March 2008, revision 2.
- February photos in Attleboro & N. Attleboro.
- 09 March 2008, revision 3.
- March 9 photos at Wall St. in Attleboro.
- 12 March 2008, revision 4.
- March 10 photos in Attleboro.
- 14 March 2008, revision 5.
- March 13 photos in Plainville & N. Attleboro.
- 17 March 2008, revision 6.
- March 16 photos in Attleboro.
- 03 April 2008, revision 7.
- April 3 photos in Pawtucket; added Notes section.
- 01 June 2008, revision 8.
- May 26 photos at Tiffany St. in Attleboro.
- 03 June 2008, revision 9.
- Markup corrected.
- 14 September 2008, revision 10.
- September 14 photos at Thacher St. in Attleboro.
- 17 April 2009, revision 11.
- April 17 photos at West St. in Attleboro.
- 25 April 2009, revision 12.
- April 25 photos in N. Attleboro.
- 23 November 2009, revision 13.
- Link to Charles Adler's Ten Mile River Watershed page.
- 26 May 2010, revision 14.
- May 25 photos at Central Ave., Pawtucket.
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