20, 000 Years on the Merrimack River Starting at its headwaters in Franconia Notch, the Merrimack rushes 117 miles to its mouth in Newburyport, Massachusetts. But it also spans 20, 000 years of history crucial to the development of the American continent and the United States. This book brims with the colorful characters and crucial events that set the United States on its present trajectory. It tells the story of Paleo- Indians hunting migrating caribou on the river's shores. It tells of the Great Pine Tree Riot that kicked off the American Revolution and the China trade that provided the country luxury and capital. It tells the story of the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack that changed Navel warfare and the river's mills that led to the industrial procedures we still practice today. Finally it shows how wastes from industries like tanning, lumbering and humans themselves have accumulated in the river and points towards innovative ways to return the Merrimack to its once clean and pristine state.