The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough , near Gillette Stadium . From there, the Neponset meanders generally northeast for about 29 miles (47 km) to its mouth at Dorchester Bay between Quincy and the Dorchester section of Boston , near the painted gas tank .
32-748: Neponset River Reservation is a Massachusetts state reservation along the Neponset River in the towns of Milton and Dorchester , near where the river flows through an estuary into the Boston Harbor . It is adjacent to the Dorchester-Milton Lower Mills Industrial District along the River. This was some of the last land retained by Cutshamekin (Massachusett) before he deeded much of the land comprising Dorchester and Milton to English colonists in
64-498: A silversmith and in other endeavors such as bell casting, cannon casting, and the forging of copper bolts and spikes. He had already been rolling silver sheets since 1785, which had taught him the fundamental principles of rolling. However, copper rolling is a much more complex process and, as a beginner in this field, Revere's first copper sheets were not of the same quality as those of the British. Revere had several questions about
96-687: A final pass of cold rolling improved the finish and slightly increased the strength. Eventually, Paul Revere's copper sheets would provide sheathing for more ships in the American fleet, cover the original wooden dome of the Massachusetts State House , and even be used for the boilers of one of Robert Fulton ’s early steamboats . When the Canton Viaduct was constructed in 1835 for the Boston and Providence Railroad mainline,
128-563: A loan from the Department of the Navy to convert it into a copper foundry, completing America's first copper rolling mill. The most important pieces of equipment were the rollers themselves, which consisted of large iron cylinders through which raw copper would be inserted and compressed. While Revere admitted that Britain had superior rollers, the difficulty of purchasing equipment related to copper rolling forced him to produce his own. One of
160-600: A spur was added to the Revere site. Joseph Warren Revere, then owner of Revere, was a director of the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation. Through a series of mergers in 1928 and 1929, Revere Copper became Revere Copper and Brass, Inc., headquartered in Rome, New York with the first president being George H. Allen, with several plants and product divisions. Revere Copper and Brass ranked 96th among United States corporations in
192-605: A watershed that includes numerous aquifers, wetlands, streams, and surrounding upland areas. Some 250,000 people live in the Neponset River watershed, which in addition to the towns listed above, includes portions of Stoughton , Medfield , Dover , and Randolph . The Canton River, a tributary of the Neponset River, is located in Canton, Massachusetts. It flows under the Canton Viaduct . Before Europeans arrived,
224-524: Is a copper rolling mill in the United States . It operated North America's first copper rolling mill. It was started by Paul Revere in 1801 in Canton, Massachusetts , and developed a commercially viable process for manufacturing copper sheets. Copper rolling is the process of converting large blocks of copper into thin sheets by rolling them gradually down to size. These sheets of copper were used in
256-613: Is the largest lighthouse type structure in America. While the structure is located next to the Neponset River, the Gillette Stadium Lighthouse is not a real lighthouse because the Neponset River is not a federally controlled water way in Foxborough, as it is less than 2 miles wide. Gillette Stadium Lighthouse stands at 218 feet tall and 22 stories high. Revere Copper Company The Revere Copper Company
288-539: The American Revolution , the American navy wanted to begin using this process of copper sheathing the nation's ships. Benjamin Stoddert , a successful businessman and ardent Federalist , recognized the importance of a powerful Navy in preserving the economic and political independence of the new United States. Stoddert used his position as Secretary of the Navy to fund metalworkers such as Paul Revere in
320-902: The $ 9.5 billion in federal funds the state government received under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act . In March 2022, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed 3.7 miles of the Neponset River, between Mother Brook in Hyde Park to the Lower Mills, on the National Priorities List of the Superfund program for remediation due to sediment containing elevated levels of PCBs . Neponset River The Neponset River forms
352-544: The 17th century. In February 2022, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced an $ 8.2 million project to construct a 0.7-mile shared-use path from Tenean Beach on the reservation to Morrissey Boulevard . It will connect the Boston Harborwalk with Neponset via Morrissey (including a 670-foot boardwalk in the salt marshes near the National Grid gas tank ). The project will be one funded under
SECTION 10
#1732773095524384-443: The 18th and 19th centuries mainly to plate the bottoms of ships. This process of plating ship bottoms, referred to as “sheathing” or “ coppering ”, helped increase the speed and lifespan of ships. Copper was desired for this process because it reacts with seawater to create an oxide coating that prevents the build-up of barnacles , weeds, and other detritus, in addition to physically stopping shipworms from burrowing into and degrading
416-490: The British produced; in 1803, Revere wrote a letter to Joshua Humphreys discussing his copper rolling endeavor. In it, he concluded “Our sheets are as well finished and as soft & as free from scales & cannot be distinguished from English” In 1803, the Department of the Navy commissioned Revere to roll copper sheets to sheathe the hull of USS Constitution . Originally, the Navy had contracted Revere to roll
448-655: The Neponset 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 (69 m) over its first 12 miles, (19 km) and so the earliest years of the Industrial Revolution brought the Neponset to prominence. In 1635, Israel Stoughton built
480-558: The United States. This river was central to the establishment of the town of Walpole . The river now flows through the Dorchester-Milton Lower Mills Industrial District . The stretch of the Neponset from Milton to Dorchester Bay was referred to as Milton River on some early maps. About 2,000 feet (610 m) of the river was placed in conduits during construction of the Foxboro Raceway and later Foxboro Stadium. During
512-631: The area was inhabited by Algonquian -speaking Native American tribes. The Wamsutta site (19-NF-70) is a paleoindian site, which was dated to 10210 ± 60 BP ). Evidence of habitation along the Neponset River also includes the Middle Archaic (ca. 5000 BC) at sites such as Green Hill near the Blue Hills . 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. The falling waters of
544-595: The construction of Gillette Stadium , the river was relocated to the edge of the property (adjacent to the Framingham Secondary ) and daylit . In 2021, the United States Environmental Protection Agency recommended 3.7 miles of the Lower Neponset River be added to the National Priorities List of the Superfund program, due to industrial pollution with PCBs . In March 2022, the EPA placed
576-611: 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. In 1639, English settlers in Dedham began digging a canal connecting the Charles River with Mother Brook , a tributary of the Neponset, in order to provide their town with water power for mills; it was the first man-made canal in North America and increased
608-505: The hopes that American manufacturers might be able to develop copper rolling technology of their own and reduce America's reliance on Britain for the majority of its copper products, especially for industrial and military needs. Revere saw the Navy's desire for copper sheathing as an opportunity to increase both his income and social standing, so he rose to the challenge presented by Stoddert. Revere began rolling copper using his established knowledge of metallurgy gained from his experience as
640-413: The many insights Revere had gleaned from his son's espionage mission was a rolling mill design with both rollers mechanically coupled and powered by the same source. This mechanism was simpler than that of many other mills. Combining these British practices with his own knowledge and experiments, Revere was able to ultimately develop a method to produce copper sheathing of at least equal quality to that which
672-671: The movie Black Mass , referencing an area south and east of the Keystone Shoreline in Dorchester, Massachusetts on the north bank, underneath the area where the Interstate 93 / Southeast Expressway / Route 1 bridge spans the river. A character in the movie makes reference to the area as "Bulger's Burial Ground", where crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger had the bodies of several of his murder victims buried. That unmarked burial ground really did exist, but in actuality
SECTION 20
#1732773095524704-481: The old Neponset Drive-In to provide the 66-acre (270,000 m ) Pope John Paul II Park , which opened to the public in 2001. At Squantum Point in Quincy , phase one of Squantum Point Park , 25 acres (100,000 m ) of a 50-acre (200,000 m ) former U.S. Navy Airfield , was developed as waterfront parkland with assistance from National Grid plc and dedicated in the spring of 2001. The Neponset River figures in
736-533: The second Milton Town Landing at Lower Mills were at the peak of their operation. 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
768-569: The segment between Mother Brook in Hyde Park to the Lower Mills on the National Priorities List. Today the Neponset River and its watershed are increasingly being protected and opened up as a recreational destination for the benefit of local residents. Several recommendations of the 1966 Lower Neponset River Reservation Master Plan have been implemented, including the reclamation of the former Hallet Street landfill and
800-409: The sheets using a cold rolling technique, but Revere petitioned to roll them hot , with a final cold pass after they annealed . Revere was confident in his technique of mixing hot and cold rolling, claiming it gave a superior combination of flexibility and strength. Hot rolling “would make them less brittle, allows nails to pass through them easily, and form a tighter seal with the ship’s hull”, while
832-430: 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 Neponset River is fed by a drainage basin of approximately 130 square miles,
864-440: The superior British process, but the British closely guarded their methods. Whilst Revere had a rough idea of how to roll copper, he sent his son, Joseph Warren Revere , to Britain in 1804 to try to learn more about the details of the British process. Revere purchased a mill in Canton, Massachusetts , for $ 6,000 in late 1800 to provide a dedicated copper producing facility. The mill was originally an ironworks , but Revere used
896-484: The value of World War II military production contracts. By 1938, James M. Kennedy, an employee, had invented copper-clad cookware, which went into production and is now known as Revere Ware . The Detroit plant, in collaboration with DuPont, was commissioned to assist the United States Mint in the production of a new copper and copper-nickel composite coin to replace silver coins in 1964. The Detroit plant
928-447: The water flow in the lower sections of the Neponset. In 1640, shipbuilding began at Gulliver's Creek Wharf, and in 1673 John Trescott built a lumber mill on the river. 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
960-401: The wood. Not only did copper sheathing help ships sail faster by keeping their hulls clean, but it also drastically increased the amount of time a ship could remain in service between overhauls. In fact, “British Navy Comptroller Charles Middleton estimated that copper sheathing might double the number of ships at sea at any time”. Paul Revere's interest in copper rolling began when, after
992-661: Was approximately one mile north of the area referenced in the film, near Tenean Beach in the Dorchester Shores Reservation . 2.4 miles (3.9 km) of the Lower Neponset River Trail opened in 2003. The trail follows the former right-of-way of the Dorchester and Milton Branch Railroad , the western part of which is also used by the MBTA Ashmont–Mattapan High Speed Line . The Gillette Stadium Lighthouse
Neponset River Reservation - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-538: Was responsible for the hot rolling process of the coinage metal, according to a June 3, 2013 article in Coin World News . The composition metal used a DuPont explosive bonding process called Detaclad, patented by DuPont on June 23, 1964. The company—now employee-owned—exists as Revere Copper Products, with headquarters in Rome, New York. Revere Copper's New Bedford, Massachusetts -based operations—a presence in
#523476