In August 1878, Rev. Pliny Steele Boyd, then of Amesbury, Mass. and his sons Wendell and Parsons took a month long sojourn up the Merrimac River from Powow River in Amesbury, Mass. to Passaconnaway Island in New Hampshire and back again.. Joined by Mrs. Boyd for the Amesbury leg of the trip, they soon were battling the Merrimac's strong current for a 50 mile journey, through Northern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire, traveling by canal lock and portage the rapids, even once by dray wagon. A boys own adventure of camping, swimming and fishing in their own backyard. Pliny Steele Boyd, (1836-1887), was a Congregational clergyman, he wrote mostly for religious periodicals. He and his wife Mary Jane Allen (1836-1905), had six children all of them boys.