Salem Beverly Waterway Canal

1652, January, 1912, caused the legislature in Chapter 85 of the Resolves of 1912 to appoint a three-man commission to study water-supply issues in most of the towns and cities of northeastern Massachusetts.

The prevailing sentiment was that water needed so badly for drinking should not be wasted in Ipswich Bay.

Ipswich by then had long ceased to be a commercial port, in favor of Newburyport and Boston.

Chapter 700 of the Acts of 1913 created the Salem and Beverly Water Supply Board and gave it the right to divert Ipswich River flows over 20 million gallons per day, up to 2500 million gallons per year, in December through May, at a certain location in Topsfield (approximately the mouth of the canal).

The board declined construction of artificial impoundments on the river or canal as unfeasible.