Historic leaves, volume 3, April, 1904 - January, 1905

Half a mile further south was Nichols' lock, a portion of which still remains as a part of a cellar wall. Mr. Nichols had charge of this lock for a great many years. He was a successful farmer, and, in addition, kept an excellent inn for the accommodation of travelers on the canal. There were many of these, and Nichols' was a favorite place for dinner or a night's lodging. In Wilmington the canal passed through wide, boggy meadows, where the bed sank some sixty feet; crossed the Maple Meadow brook near the poor farm by another aqueduct, of which the remains are very picturesque; and then made an abrupt bend around the foot of a hill. This bend was called the Oxbow. A mile further south the canal entered the town of Woburn, passing within a short distance of the house of Loammi Baldwin. Just to the north of Woburn station a picturesque view of the canal may be had from the railroad. The canal has here been transformed into a duckpond, the width being preserved, but each end of the pond being formed by a dam and the railroad embankment. The canal crossed the swamp, where great quantities of earth were sunk in forming the bed and side banks, and passed to the rear of the present public library building and under the road near Wilson's Tavern. This tavern has since been the homestead of the late Ruel Carter, and was destroyed by fire about 1886. The canal passed through Horn pond, where there was a very important engineering feature, and known as Horn pond, or Stoddard locks. At this point there was a descent of fifty feet by three sets of double stone locks, the middle set being separated from that above and below by a basin-line expansion or widening of the canal, by which the draft of water by locking was equalized. Two of these locks were of hammered granite. These locks were so near Boston, the journey thither in the packet boat, ‘General Sullivan,’ was such a pleasant one, the view of the canal and lake was so picturesque and interesting, that the place speedily became a popular resort. Pleasure boats plied the lake, Kendall's Boston brass band and the Brigade band of Boston rendered sweet harmony, and the crowds wandered from the groves to the lake and back to the canal, where shots of lumber-rafts and canal-boats laden with cargoes were