FRYEBURG, Maine — Exactly 200 years ago, a group of local farmers in Fryeburg changed the course of the Saco River with oxen and hand tools.

First, they had to dig through bureaucratic red tape put in their path by Massachusetts government from which they had requested help. Frustrated by that and the state’s refusal of funds, they dug a canal at their own expense. It was completed in 1820, the same year Maine finally broke from Massachusetts to become its own state.

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