February 14, 2016, the Sunday after the Super Bowl, 1 pm public meeting of the Middlesex Canal Association. Tom Dahill, Professor of Fine Arts Emeritus at Emerson College, will give a talk on the so-called Floating Towpath, a watercolor of the Middlesex Canal summit pond, ca. 1822, the year Jabez Barton and Rebecca Rogers married. The view is from Rebecca's father's house. Dahill's 1994 Floating Towpath which imagines in acrylics the view from the opposite side of the summit pondfrom that of the 1822 watercolor hangsin the exhibition hall of the visitor center. It is owned by the association which has reproductions for sale. The watercolor is the property of the Billerica Historical Society. The only other painting thought to be by the same 1822 watercolorist, the Rogers House, a view of Rebecca's home from the causeway of the summit pond, is owned by the NY Historical Society. Reproductions of both are in The Incredible Ditch: A Bicentennial History of the Middlesex Canal which should be brought to the talk as a needed reference. A biography of Jabez Barton is a chapter in Life on the Middlesex Canal by Alan Seaburg, illustrations by Dahill. Tom's talk will be in the Reardon Room, where coincidentally hangs a print of an 1845 watercolor, a 360° panorama of Haymarket Square in which the canal that bisected Boston is part of a magnified arc.

Public Meeting

Middlesex Canal Visitor Center/Museum

at the Billerica Falls of the Concord River

71 Faulkner St, Billerica, MA 01862

open noon-4, Sat and Sun, x holiday

www.middlesexcanal.org

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