“Telos Lake, The head of the St. John on this side, and Webster Pond, the head of the East Branch of the Penobscot, are only about a mile apart, and they are connected by a ravine, in which but little digging was required to make the water of the former, which is the highest, flow into the latter.”
-Henry David Thoreau, 1857
According to Springer in his “Forest Life” The canal between Telos Lake and Webster Pond was built to avoid sending lumber down the Saint John, which would be taxed by the Crown. By alternately diverting lumber down the Penobscot River, the Province Lost both its duty and its water.