BLODGET, Samuel, inventor, born in Woburn, Massachusetts, 1 April 1724 ; died in Haverhill, Massachusetts, 1 September 1807. He participated in the French and Indian war, was a member of the expedition against Louisburg in 1745, and afterward became a judge of the court of common pleas for the county of Hillsborough, N. It. In 1783, with a machine of his own invention, he raised a valuable cargo from a ship sunk near Plymouth, and then went to Europe for the purpose of engaging in similar enterprises. He met with discouragement in Spain, and his proposition in England to raise the "Royal George" was unsuccessful. On his return to the United States he established a duck factory in 1791, and in 1793 removed to New Hampshire, where he began the canal that bears his name, around Amoskeag falls in the Merrimack. He expended a large sum of money on this enterprise without being able to complete the work, and, becoming financially embarrassed, was for a time imprisoned for debt. See" Massachusetts Historical Collections" (new series, vol. iv.).