Telos Canal Company (Bangor, Me.)

In the 1830s Amos Roberts and Hastings Strickland obtained control of a piece of land that contained the drainages into two major watersheds. These were Webster Lake, a headwater of the East Branch of the Penobscot River, and Telos Lake, which in its natural state was a headwater of the Allagash River. It was decided to build a canal between Telos and Webster Lakes so logs could be moved from Chamberlain Lake and into Telos Lake and then into the East Branch basin. By fall 1841 dams were in place and a canal ten to fifteen feet wide and one to six feet deep stretched five hundred feet from Telos to Webster Lake. It was thereafter known as the Telos Cut. The Telos Dam held back the lake's water to create enough force, upon release, to drive logs through the cut to Webster Lake. The dam not only enabled its owners to control the flow into the canal but also to collect a toll per thousand board feet of lumber from any landowner along these lakes who wanted to drive their logs to Bangor mills and markets. The Telos Canal Company was incorporated by Rufus Dwinel and Calvin Dwinel in 1846 in the Acts and Resolves of the State of Maine, Chapter 386, approved Aug. 7, 1846. The corporation had the right to construct, maintain and keep open and in repair a canal with a suitable dam for the passage of water, logs and lumber between Telos Lake and Webster Pond in the county of Piscataquis.

George H. Hamlin was born in Sidney, Maine, in 1850. He graduated in 1873 from the Maine State College, now the University of Maine, in the Department of Civil Engineering. After graduating, he became a tutor in the department and in 1880 was appointed Professor of Civil Engineering. He was treasurer of the college from 1889 to 1896 and was active in the Alumni Association. He also had a general engineering business and was an advocate for the development of good roads in the state of Maine. Following his career as a professor he became consulting engineer for the International Paper Company and treasurer of the East Branch Improvement Company and the Telos Canal Company.

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