Hydroelectric Power in Rowe
Hydro power and the history of the New England Power Company
Just after the turn of the twentieth century, Malcolm Chase and Henry Harriman were the founders of what was to become the New England Power Company. Beginning in 1909, the Vernon Station on the Connecticut River between Vernon, VT, and Hinsdale, NH, was the first hydroelectric installation of the New England Power Company. The demand for electric power was just beginning in those days and the Vernon plant with eight turbines was designed to give power to the industrial centers of Brattleboro, VT, and Fitchburg, Gardner and Clinton, MA. This station is called a run-of-the-river plant.
Old deeds and records show that as early as 1910 Chase and Harriman were buying land and easements in Rowe for the construction of a possible tunnel from the present Fife Brook through the mountain to a power station just above Zoar Gap. Plans were drawn and it was talked about for many years but never materialized.
The Deerfield River was an ideal location for a hydroelectric installation with its seventy mile run from Somerset, VT, to the Connecticut River at Deerfield — a drop of 2,000 feet.
The first hydro installations to be built on the Deerfield River were at Shelburne Falls, MA, with stations Number Two, Three and Four completed in 1912 and 1913 requiring three dams. The Greenfield Gazette and Courier reported on March 30, 1912 that a large gang of men was in town cutting a path 100 feet wide over the mountain and crossing the Zoar road near Brittingham Hill intersection. On June 29th it was reported that the Power Construction Company had about 22 tents and 100 men who board themselves in a big open field between the road and the brook. By August 3rd, they broke camp and moved to Heath. This line would connect with the soon to be built Number Five Station and Rowe would collect its first taxes from the generation of electricity on the Deerfield.
In 1915 Number Five Station across the river from Rowe in Florida, MA, was built to power trains through the Hoosac Tunnel. It was fed by a timber crib dam at Monroe Bridge, built earlier by the Deerfield River Paper Company. Water was diverted in tubes underground and by a canal on the hill above Number Five Station. In 1930s Rowe was first electrified from this station.
From 1922 until 1924 the Davis Bridge site in Whitingham, VT, was being developed. A reservoir was created by constructing an earth dam two hundred feet high. At the time, this was the world’s largest earth-fill dam, capable of holding thirty-eight billion gallons of water and qualifying as the largest body of water completely within the state of Vermont. Next, a fourteen-foot diameter tunnel two and a half miles long was constructed through the mountain to the power station on the river below Readsboro (see note about the surge tower below). The station was later named Harriman Station in honor of Henry Harriman who pioneered New England Power’s development of the Deerfield River valley. This station was designed to accommodate peak periods of consumption and to supply the demand for electricity for 4–5 hours per day.
Wondering what this is?
The Harriman Hydroelectric Generating Station, at the northern end of Sherman Reservoir on the Deerfield River in Whitingham, VT, is powered by water from a two mile long tunnel through the mountain from Harriman Reservoir located further north on the Deerfield River in Vermont.
This surge tower lets water from the tunnel surge up the tower to break its speed before entering the generators at Harriman Station where the force of the falling water could otherwise damage the turbines. You can see the tower on the side of the mountain east of the reservoir and toward its northern end.
The Harriman Station is one of several hydroelectric power stations on the river between Somerset, VT, in the north to the Connecticut River in the south.
Rowe’s first Hydro Station
Tiny automatic Sherman station was built in 1926 just above the Monroe Bridge and went online in January 1927 to smooth out the flow of the river downstream from Harriman Station. This involved building Sherman Dam to back water upriver toward Harriman station.
From the time of New England Power’s first electric plant in Vernon, VT in 1909, they grew to 14 units, six on the Connecticut River and Eight o the Deerfield with a total generating capacity of 1.1 million Kilowatts. Comparing kilowatt capacity for our area stations: Bear swamp can produce 600,000 kW; Harriman 42,000 kW; Number Five 16,000 kW; Fife Brook 7,500 kW; and Sherman 6,500. By comparison Yankee Produced 186,000 kW of constant power where the others are available for short periods as needed.
New developments in the eighties included the installation of fish ladders at the Connecticut River to help the Atlantic salmon and shad return to their original spawning grounds. Also important have been recreational facilities they have provided for public use on power company properties including rafting and hiking on and around the Deerfield.
Text by from The History of Rowe, by Nancy Newton Williams