The Merrimack River: its source and its tributaries. Embracing a history of manufactures, and of the towns along its course; their geography, topography, and products, with a description of the magnificent natural scenery about its upper waters./ By J. W. Meader.

ITS SOURCE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
CHAPTER IX.
Cohas River.- Massabesic.- Londonderry. - Scotch-Irish Settlement.- Distinguished
Men.- Derry.- Piscataquog River.- Francestown. - Weare.- Goffstown. - Bed ford. - Souhegan River and Towns along its Course.- Litchfield.- Reed's Island. Hudsonii. -Nashua River and the Towns watered by it. - Dunstable. -The Pequauket
War. - Nashua. - Tyngsboro'. - Chelmsford. - Stony Brook. - Dracut.- Beaver
River. - John Nesmith.
COlHAS RIVER, which empties into the Merrimack on its east bank
at Goffe's Falls, is the outlet of Massabesic Lake, and is four miles
in length. On this stream there are extensive hosiery, lumber,
and other mills, the former located near its confluence with the
Merrimack. This stream was called Massabesic, and subsequently
Cohassack, from the Indian word Cooashauke, from cooash (pine)
and auke (a place). The fall in this stream between the lake and
river is one hundred and twenty feet, and a mill was built upon it
as early as 1740 by John McAMurphy.
Massabesic Lake is one of the finest natural features of Manchester. MIassabesic is derived from massa (much), nipe (water), and
au]e (a place), "The place of much water," or the great pond
place. It is nearly twenty-five miles around this lake, though nowhere much more than three miles broad. It is reputed to contain
three hundred and sixty-five islands. and certainly does contain a
great many, the largest of which is a seventy-acre lot, and is known
as Brown's Island.
Indian names were always remarkably descriptive of a place, and
the name " Massabesic," even as applied to this lake alone, is so
but it probably included and was applied to a section of territory extending northward, and including a pond beyond Rowe's Corner, so
called, in Hooksett. If this is a correct view, no name could be more
appropriate than "the place of much water." The Great Massabesic, the Island Pond and Little Massabesic, Clark's Pond, Swago or
Swager's Pond, Tower till Pond, another at Rowe's Corner, and
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