Mill River (Northampton, Massachusetts)

The Mill River is a 13.5-mile-long (21.7 km) tributary of the Connecticut River arising in the western hilltowns of Hampshire County, Massachusetts. It is notable for dropping in elevation, along with its West Branch, more than 700 feet (210 m) over 15 miles (24 km).

Dozens of mills were built along the Mill River in the early to mid 19th century to take advantage of the available waterpower. To maintain sufficient summer water flow four reservoirs were built in the higher tributaries of the river.

A dam holding back the Williamsburg Reservoir burst causing a flood along the Mill River on May 16, 1874, killing 139 people. The flood destroyed much of the villages of Williamsburg, Skinnerville, and Haydenville in the town of Williamsburg, and the village of Leeds in the town of Northampton.

This flood was widely covered in contemporaneous newspapers across the United States.

In the two weeks that elapsed between March 9 and March 22, 1936, two record-breaking storms showered the eastern United States in heavy rainfall. From Virginia to Maine, towns and cities in river basins all along the east coast experienced extensive flooding. A survey undertaken by the United States Geographical Survey the following year estimated that between 150 and 200 people were killed as a result of the floods. The same report tallied material damages in the hundreds of thousands. The monumental nature of the 1936 flood, along with another massive flood in 1938, led to the decision to re-divert the Mill River away from downtown Northampton.

The quantity of rainfall from the storms was described as among the greatest in concentration ever recorded in the country. In New England, the ground was still blanketed from the previous snowfall, and the warmer weather and heavy downpours melted the snow, significantly increasing the volume of floodwaters. Along the Connecticut River, communities were hit by two waves of surges. The first occurred when the Vernon Dam in Vermont gave out, sending an “enormous wall of water” downstream, and prompting the evacuation of Sunderland, Massachusetts. A second occurred when ice jams along the river began to break apart. In Northampton, flooding of the Mill River was compounded by the flooding of the Connecticut River, whose waters allegedly backed up as far as the dam at Paradise Pond by Smith College.

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Wikipedia