Great Falls (Connecticut River)

Connecticut River High Water in Bellows Falls Vermont (4724922647)

1886 birds-eye map of Bellows Falls, Vermont

Great Falls (Bellows Falls) at high flow 2-26-2016

Great Falls is a waterfall along the Connecticut River between Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellows Falls, Vermont. It has also been called "Bellows Falls", and its Abenaki name is Kitchee Pontegu, which means "great falls". Great Falls became its official name (based on local usage) in 2016. It drops 52 feet (16 m), and the village of Bellows Falls (within the town of Rockingham, Vermont) was established next to it, to take advantage of its water power.

Previously, the main settlement in town, Rockingham Village, was on a high point of land overlooking the Williams River, with no potential for water power.

The Bellows Falls Canal, one of the first canals built in the United States, was dug by a British-owned company from 1791-1802 to bypass Great Falls for river travel. After it was widened and deepened in 1926-28 to bring more water to a new hydroelectric plant, there was less water going over Great Falls, except during late winter and spring high flow (see third photo at right).

The Great Falls gorge is the narrowest point along the whole river, so it was the site of the first bridge across the river, built by Colonel Enoch Hale in 1784. This bridge was replaced by the Tucker Toll Bridge in 1840, built 15 feet above the old bridge; the old bridge had come close to being washed away in floods. The Tucker Toll Bridge is visible in both the "high water" and bird's eye view (with Great Falls at the right edge of the second image) at the right of this page. Tolls were suspended on the Tucker Bridge after it was bought by the two adjoining towns in 1904.

The Tucker Bridge was presumably used less after a new bridge between Bellows Falls and Walpole, the steel Arch Bridge, was built upriver of the dam in 1905. The Tucker Bridge was then replaced by the Vilas Bridge in 1930 (3rd image at the right). The Vilas Bridge was closed to all traffic in 2009 because it was dangerous, and there are currently (as of 2020) no firm plans to repair or replace it.

There was a covered railroad bridge just upriver of the toll bridge, visible in the first two images at the right. This bridge was built for the Cheshire railroad a few months after the completion of the railroad between Fitchburg and Bellows Falls in 1849. The covered railroad bridge was replaced by an uncovered stone arch bridge in 1899 which still stands, and parts of it are visible behind the Vilas Bridge in the image at the right.

Two people are known to have traversed the falls and survived. The first was an "Indian woman" (before 1781, when it was reported) who made the trip lying down in a canoe. She had been attempting to cross the river above the falls but was pulled into the falls by the current. The second was Captain Paul Boyton, who passed through the falls in a rubber floating suit on October 30, 1879, with about 2,000 spectators. "[Boyton] said the water bore him down with a terrible weight to the bottom of the channel and for a few moments he confidently expected it would hold him there to his death."

There are two groups of petroglyphs on the Vermont side of the falls, called the Bellows Falls Petroglyph Site, just downstream of the Vilas Bridge. Depending on the height and density of the riverbank vegetation, and the river level, the petroglyphs may be visible through binoculars from near the eastern end of Bridge Street in Bellows Falls, without climbing down the steep bank.