$500,000, of which one-third was for land damages, was but little more than the estimate.  Commencing at Charlestown mill-pond, it passed through Medford, crossing the Mystic by a wooden aqueduct of 100 ft., to Horn pond in Woburn.  Traversing Woburn and Wilmington it crossed the Shawshine by an aqueduct of 137 ft., and struck the Concord, from which it receives its water, at Billerica Mills.  Entering the Concord by a stone guard-lock, it crossed, with a floating tow-path, and passed out on the northern side through another stone guard-lock; thence it descended 27 ft., in a course of 5-1/4 miles, through Chelmsford to the Merrimac, making its entire length 27-1/4 m.

The proprietors made Charlestown bridge the eastern terminus for their boats, but ultimately communication was opened with the markets and wharves upon the harbor, through Mill Creek, over a section of which Blackstone street now extends.

As the enterprise had the confidence of the business community, money for prosecuting the work had been procured with comparative ease.  The stock was divided into 800 shares, and among the original stockholders appear the names of Ebenezer and Dudley Hall, Oliver Wendall, John Adams of Quincy, Peter C. Brooks of Medford, and Andrew Craigie of Cambridge.  The stock had steadily advanced from $25 a share in the autumn of 1794 to $473 in 1803, the year the canal was opened, touching $500 in 1804.  Then a decline set in, a few dollars at a time, till 1816, when its market value was $300 with few takers, although the canal was in successful operation, and, in 1814, the obstructions in the Merrimac had been surmounted, so that canal boats, locking into the river at Chelmsford, had been poled up stream as far as Concord.

Firewood and lumber always formed a very considerable item in the business of the canal.  The navy-yard at Charlestown and the shipyards on the Mystic form any years relied upon the canal for the greater part of the timber used in shipbuilding; and work was sometimes seriously retarded by low water in the Merrimac, which interfered with transportation.  The supply of oak and pine about Lake Winnipiseogee, and along the Merrimac and its tributaries, was thought to be practically inexhaustible.  In the opinion of Daniel Webster, the value of this timber had been increased $5,000,000 by the canal.  Granite from Tyngsborough, and agricultural products from a great extent of fertile country, found their way along this channel to Boston; while the return boats supplied taverns and country stores with their annual stock of goods.  The receipts from tolls, rents, etc. were steadily increasing, amounting,

in 1812 to $12,600, " 1813 " 16,800, " 1814 " 25,700, " 1815 " 29,200, " 1816 " 32,600,

Yet, valuable, useful, and productive as the canal had proved itself, it had lost the confidence of the public, and, with a few exceptions, of the proprietors themselves.  The reason for this state of sentiment can easily be shown.  The general depression of business on account of the embargo and the war of 1812 had its effect upon the canal.  In the deaths of Gov.  Sullivan and Col.  Baldwin, in the same year, 1808, the enterprise was deprived of the wise and energetic counsellors to whom it owed its existence.