The Acushnet River is the largest river, 8.6 miles (13.8 km) long, flowing into Buzzards Bay

Buzzards Bay

Buzzards Bay is a bay along the southern edge of Massachusetts in the United States. The name may also refer to:*Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, a village in Bourne, Massachusetts*Buzzards Bay , the name of the horse that won the 2005 Santa Anita Derby...

 in southeastern Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The name "Acushnet" comes from the Wampanoag or Algonquian

Algonquian languages

The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...

 word, "Cushnea", meaning "as far as the waters", a word that was used by the original owners of the land in describing the extent of the parcel they intended to sell to the English settlers from the nearby Plimouth colony

Plymouth Colony

Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...

. Quite naturally, the English mistook "Cushnea" for a fixed placename or the name of a specific river.

Path of the river

The source of the Acushnet River is Long Pond in Lakeville, Massachusetts

Lakeville, Massachusetts

Lakeville is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 9,821 at the 2000 census.For geographic and demographic information on the village of North Lakeville, please see the article North Lakeville, Massachusetts.-History:...

. The root tributary, Squam Brook, flows out of Long Pond and through the settlement called Freetown

Freetown, Massachusetts

Freetown is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 8,870 at the 2010 census.Freetown is one of the oldest communities in the United States, having been settled by the Pilgrims and their descendants in the latter half of the 17th century. The town once included...

 before it fills the New Bedford Reservoir in the town of Acushnet

Acushnet, Massachusetts

Acushnet is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,303 at the 2010 census.- History :Acushnet was first settled in 1659. It has been included as a part of three separate towns throughout its history. It was formerly the northeastern section of the town of...

. From the reservoir, the river continues southward, forming the dividing-line between Acushnet and the city of New Bedford

New Bedford, Massachusetts

New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...

. Then it divides New Bedford, on its western bank, from Fairhaven

Fairhaven, Massachusetts

Fairhaven is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is located on the south coast of Massachusetts where the Acushnet River flows into Buzzards Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean...

, on its eastern bank, before spilling into Buzzards Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

.

The six bridges

The river is crossed by bridges six times. There are three short bridges in Acushnet, where the river is narrow. As the river leaves Acushnet, it widens to form an estuarine

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

 harbor, New Bedford harbor, which is flanked by New Bedford and Fairhaven. Shortly after the river leaves Acushnet, a larger bridge, the Coggeshall Street Bridge, crosses between Fairhaven and New Bedford. The fifth bridge is one that carries a large limited-access highway, Interstate 195

Interstate 195 (Rhode Island-Massachusetts)

Interstate 195 is an Interstate Highway running a combined 40.1 miles in the U.S. states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It travels from a junction with Interstate 95 in Providence, Rhode Island east to a junction with Interstate 495 and Route 25 in Wareham, Massachusetts...

, across the river, about 150 metres south of the Coggeshall Street span.

The sixth and last bridge is actually a complex of three small bridges that hopscotch

Hopscotch

Hopscotch is a children's game that can be played with several players or alone. Hopscotch is a popular playground game.- Court and rules :- The court :...

from islet to islet across the breadth of New Bedford harbor, carrying US Route 6. Beginning on the western (New Bedford) side of the river, there is a short bridge over the shallow gut dividing the New Bedford bank from Fish Island. The second part of the traverse involves crossing the main river channel between Fish Island and Pope's Island via the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge

New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge

The New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge is a swing truss bridge which connects New Bedford, Massachusetts with Fairhaven, Massachusetts.-Between New Bedford and Fairhaven:...

, a swing bridge that originally opened in 1902. (A "swing bridge" is one that, through a powered mechanism, is able to rotate or pivot so as to present two passages for boats or ships, one on either side of the bridge's central fulcrum.) Finally, the road crosses the shallow eastern passage from Pope's Island to Fairhaven along the low-lying Pope's Island Bridge.

The hurricane barrier

Beginning in 1958, a hurricane barrier was built from a point about one hundred metres north of Fort Phoenix, in Fairhaven, to Clark's Cove in New Bedford. It consists of an arc of riprap

Riprap

Riprap — also known as rip rap, rubble, shot rock or rock armour or "Rip-rap" — is rock or other material used to armor shorelines, streambeds, bridge abutments, pilings and other shoreline structures against scour, water or ice erosion.It is made from a variety of rock types, commonly granite or...

 and fill, approximately three kilometres long, surmounted by a service road. At the center of the structure is a control tower and a set of hydraulically-operated doors that can be closed, when necessary, to shut out the surge of seawater that typically accompanies a major storm or hurricane. The New Bedford Harbor Hurricane Barrier is the largest stone structure on the east coast of the United States.

(A structure with the same purpose, the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier

Fox Point Hurricane Barrier

The Fox Point Hurricane Barrier is a long tidal flood barrier spanning the Providence River in Providence, Rhode Island, located upstream from Fox Point...

, was constructed across the throat of Narragansett Bay

Narragansett Bay

Narragansett Bay is a bay and estuary on the north side of Rhode Island Sound. Covering 147 mi2 , the Bay forms New England's largest estuary, which functions as an expansive natural harbor, and includes a small archipelago...

, near Providence, Rhode Island

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

, about forty kilometres from this structure spanning the mouth of the Acushnet.)

Historical significance

Historically, the river's banks were home to many mills, especially on the New Bedford side of the river. The river's mouth, which forms a small but well-sheltered harbor, has long served as the home port

Home port

A vessel's home port is the port at which it is based, which may not be the same as its port of registry shown on its registration documents and lettered on the stern of the ship's hull...

 of New Bedford's commercial fishing fleet. It is also the birthplace of New Bedford's whaling

Whaling

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 industry; the Dartmouth, the first ship whose keel was laid in New Bedford, first set sail on this river. (The ship would go on to fame as one of those involved in the Boston Tea Party

Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies...

.) On the eastern (Fairhaven) shore, the mouth of the river is guarded by Fort Phoenix

Fort Phoenix

Fort Phoenix is a Revolutionary War-era fort located at the entrance to the Fairhaven-New Bedford harbor, south of U.S. 6 in Fort Phoenix Park in Fairhaven, Massachusetts....

, a fortification that was involved, in 1775, in the first naval engagement of the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

.