Construction of canal at Rumford

The construction of canals to furnish Androscoggin water to the several mills at Rumford Falls was of paramount importance in the early 1890s. Hugh Chisholm also purchased controlling stock in the Rumford Falls and Buckfield Railway Company, which had reached only as far as Canton in the 1880s—some seventeen miles downriver from Rumford. Chisholm completed the line and eventually connected it to the Grand Trunk and Maine Central railroads.