Short answers, pulled from the story.
Samuel Slater opened the first successful water-powered cotton mill in America in 1790. This facility relied on the waters of the Blackstone River to turn its machinery at Pawtucket Falls.
The original Native American name for the river was the Kittacuck which means the great tidal river. The river was plentiful with salmon and lamprey in pre-colonial times before European settlement.
The Blackstone Canal operated for just twenty years from its opening until it closed in 1848. Construction began in 1825 and cost $750,000 which was twice its initial estimate when the packet boat Lady Carrington arrived in Worcester on the 7th of October 1828.
Congress designated the region as a National Heritage Corridor in November 1986. This designation composed 25 towns and cities throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island including locations like Uxbridge and Sutton.
At the 2010 United States census the population of the Blackstone Valley was 848,725. Worcester had 206,518 inhabitants making it the largest town in the count while Pawtucket held 75,604 residents.