USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America. > Part 71
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Organization of the Essex Company. - Only two days after the pas- sage of the Act of Incorporation, March 22, 1845, the Essex Company stockholders' subscription list was drawn up. Abbott Lawrence was the first subscriber, taking one thousand shares, at $100 cach ; this bona fide investment of $100,000 he never disturbed ; not one share did he sell in the trial days that came in the company's fortune ; the shares are now owned by his heirs, and the holding-on policy has richly paid in this instance. John A. Lowell, Nathan Appleton, and T. H. Perkins subscribed $50,000 each ; Bryant & Sturgis, George W. Lyman, and Amos Lawrence, $40,000 each ; Samuel Lawrence and John Nesmith, $32,000 each ; William W. Stone and Theodore Lyman, $25,000 each ; William Lawrence, John P. Cushing, I. W. Patterson, Charles S. Storrow, J. Huntington Wolcott, Samuel Batchelder, Charles Jackson, and Daniel Saunders, $20,000 each. In the $10,000 list, appeared the names of J. Wiley Edmands, Patrick T. Jackson, J. P. Putnam, Martin Brimmer, Josiah G. Abbott, Sam- uel Hooper, George C. Shattuck, and Samuel Appleton. Among other subscribers for varying amounts, appear the names of Daniel Saunders, Jr., Josiah G. White, Thomas B. Curtis, C. P. Curtis, D. R. Curtis, C. W. Saunders, John Tenney, Nathaniel Stevens, and George Motley. The aggregate capital of $1,000,000 appears to have been subscribed with no delay or halting; the work preliminary to organization, and securing titles to lands, went on without the loss of an hour.
On the 16th of April, 1845, stockholders of the Essex Company permanently organized by the choice of Abbott Lawrence, Nathan Appleton, Patrick T. Jackson, John A. Lowell, Ignatius Sargent, William Sturgis, and Charles S. Storrow, as directors; Abbott Law- rence became president, with Charles S. Storrow treasurer and gen- eral agent. These active officers promptly set themselves to the work they were chosen to do, with an eye to ultimate and continued sue- cess, rather than immediate realization of profit.
The summer of 1845 was a busy one. Deeds for some 2,300 acres of land, within the site of the projected town, were taken, nearly
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equal areas in Andover and Methuen. Early in the year, Mr. Stor- row, as engineer of the company, determined the location and pre- pared plans for the construction of the Great Dam, of the canal, its guard locks, and the location of principal streets and squares. These works were contracted for, and labor commenced in July, 1845. They were constructed in accordance with those plans, and the prin- cipal physical features of the city then first determined have remained unchanged. Those planning and executing the important primary works had large-hearted promptings, and designed in a broad and lib- eral spirit. Had it been otherwise, no beautiful central common would have been saved from sale with extensive suburban parks ; aid to intellectual and moral forces, vital in the beginning, would have been less helpful ; all operations less progressive and liberal.
Both the president and the agent of the new company were men of boldness, skill, and originality.
They also fully realized that they were founding a city and giving it abiding characteristics. Work done was intended to be permanent.
Mr. Storrow * acted both as engineer and general agent until the spring of 1846, when Capt. Charles H. Bigelow, who had been in charge of construction of forts in Boston Harbor, entered the company's service, and Mr. Storrow devoted himself more exclusively to duties of administration and finance, a work he has uninterruptedly con- tinned to the present time ; always with an eye to the development of a model manufacturing city, with the institutions and characteristics of a cultivated and refined community. Capt. Bigelow proceeded to carry forward to their completion the construction of works already in progress, and to plan and execute designs for the construction of large mills and machine-shops, built by the Essex Company for themselves and for other corporations.
The broad comprehension, unwavering faith, and large capacity of Abbott Lawrenee should never be forgotten by dwellers in the city that bears his name. More than once, when vital interests were in peril, he came to the rescue with safe counsel and timely financial aid. He was born in Groton, Mass., Dec. 16, 1792, and died in Boston, Aug. 18, 1855. His early education was at the district school during the winter, and for a few months at the academy in his native village. To this was added only the hardy and wholesome discipline of a pious New England country household. He had a bright, active mind, and a sanguine, happy temperament. At the age of sixteen he entered Bos- ton as an apprentice to his brother, Amos Lawrence. Five years later he formed a co-partnership with his brother, under the firm of A. & A. Lawrence. Their business was the importation and sale of foreign manufactures, in which they stood at the head of that class of mer- chants. It was not until the year 1830 that they became interested in the cotton mills at Lowell, with which they were ever after so closely identified. "As a man of business," says one of his biograph- ers, " Mr. Lawrence possessed talents of the very first order. Prompt, energetic, with an intuitive insight into the characters of men, with sound judgment and an openness of character which won favor on the slightest acquaintance, he acquired the confidence of the community in the highest degree." But he was not merely the model merchant- prince, whose career honored the profession to which he belonged, nor was his mind confined to the numerous details and multiform pursuits of trade. He took a deep interest in politics, political economy, and finance, and both as a writer and a speaker exercised a commanding influence in all matters of public concern. Whatever tended to pro- mote the moral and intellectual advancement of mankind, found in Mr. Lawrence a sympathizing and liberal benefactor. He showed the sin- cerity of the true Christian philanthropist in his unselfishness, his consideration for the rights and claims of others, and his ready and unfailing kindness to all, rich and poor, who approached him.
In 1834 he was elected a member of the twenty-fourth congress for the district of Suffolk. He declined a re-election at the end of the term, " nor," as his biographer states, as an evidence of his great per- sonal popularity, " could he be induced to alter his purpose by the remarkable assurance given to him by the members of the opposite party, that if he would consent to stand, no candidate should be brought ont against him." In 1839 he was again triumphantly elected.
In 1842 he was appointed one of the commissioners from Massa- chusetts to negotiate with Lord Ashburton the settlement of the North- eastern Boundary question then pending between the United States and England. In 1847 he founded the Scientific School at Cam- bridge - an enduring monument of his enlightened munifieence. In 1848 he lacked only six votes of a nomination to the Vice-Presidency,
* We are indebte l to Mr. Storrow for valuable information, and access to important papers.
an honor given to Fillmore and the State of New York. Thus, as events proved, he barely missed the Presidency. He declined a seat in President Taylor's cabinet, but accepted the appointment of minister to Great Britain, a station which he filled for three years with dis- tinguished success.
His service in Lawrence as president and one of the principal own- ers in the Land and Water Power Company, and his later service as the president of the Pacific Mills, when the fortunes of that great enter- prise were trembling in the balance, and were saved only by the skill, courage, and credit of himself and others, need not be told to residents of that time, but should be recorded for the benefit of generations to come.
CHAPTER IV.
DEVELOPING POWER.
THE GREAT DAM AND CANALS - POWER OBTAINED -A SERIOUS ACCI- DENT-FRESHETS - CAPT. PHINEAS STEVENS.
The Great Dam is built upon the solid rock of the river-bed. It is massive, symmetrical, and permanent, constructed of huge granite blocks, laid in hydraulic cement, firmly bedded and bolted upon the river bed-rock, with a thickness at the base of 35 feet, narrowed to 13 feet just below the crest-stone ; the greatest height of masonry, above foundation bed, is 40} feet ; the average height of masonry from the bed is 32 feet ; the average plunge of water is 25 to 26 feet, without flash-boards.
The masonry of this structure, - one of the most permanent dams on the continent, - is 1,629 feet entire length. The overflow falls in an unbroken sheet of water, 900 feet wide from wing to wing, curv- ing slightly up stream. Though wanting the wild beauty of natural cascades, many come to view this grand triumph of labor skilfully directed. A solid filling of earth, backing this masonry, slopes one foot in six, and protects the structure. The south wing wall is 324 feet long, the north wing 405 feet, both extending far into the banks, the whole standing apparently as firm as natural masses of rock. This dam developes mill powers equivalent to about 10,000 horse powers, for use in ordinary working hours in dryest seasons. A mill power may be defined as the result of the fall of thirty cubic feet of water per second, where the head and fall is twenty-five feet, equiva- lent to about eighty horse power. Abont seven-tenths of the power at Lawrence has been bronght into nse by sale or lease,
The dam was exactly three years in building. On the first day of August, 1845, excavation commenced ; and, on the 19th of Septem- ber following, at five o'clock, P. MI., the first stone of the structure was laid in the foundation, at a point near the centre of the river, by John A. Carpenter, of the firm of Gilmore & Carpenter, contraetors. Sept. 19, 1848, the same day of the month and honr of the day that the first stone was laid three years before, the last stone was secured in place.
A Serious Accident. - After the completion of parts of the dam at either end, it became necessary, in October, 1847, to turn the current over the finished portion (some 500 feet) by coffer-dams, that the central part might be finished, and power furnished, to some extent, for mechanical operations at the new mills below. As the water was brought to maximum height, by planking upon huge timbers, just at the moment when success was achieved, and cheers of workmen went up over snecessful control of Merrimac River, a portion of the coffer-dam, about 250 feet from the north end, rose upon the swollen current, and was swept, a fearful ruin, upon rocks below. Capt. Bigelow, chief engineer, with L. M. Wright, his assistant, and thir- teen helpers, were in a scow busily at work when the break occurred. The scow swung upon the rushing current, went over and struck npon the rocks, hurling twelve occupants, among flying tools, into the river below. Two men jumped, and clung in safety to a firin portion of the coffer-dam, one went safely over in the current. Of the twelve men in the boat, two were killed ontright, five injured, two seriously. Capt. Bigelow - thanks to a faithful workman and his intrepid assist- ant - escaped with his life, but was temporarily disabled.
A freshet succeeded this break, sweeping away other portions of the temporary dam, but the immense current moved not a stone of the permanent work. This accident caused much excitement. Not only was there loss of life, always to be deplored : it was a temporary set-back in important work, creating a feeling of nneasiness among | trouble-borrowers and croakers.
Abbott Samme
ALBERTYPE. FORBES . 6 BOSTON
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
The great freshet of April, 1852, tested the strength and sufficiency of works controlling power upon the river. On the 23d of that month the swollen current stood at ten feet above the crest of Law- rence dam, overflowing large tracts in Ward Five, causing apprehen- sion as to safety of portions of the town, and carrying away fishway, toll-house, and parts of old Andover Bridge. Wings of the dam have since been raised ; the north dike (a broad publie street - Win- ter Street) protects the city from overflow. By the raising and grad- ing of streets, rise of freshets has been shut from lands liable to submergence. At Lowell there was actual peril from the rise, which was six inches greater than ever before known, five feet greater than since the establishment of mills. Under immense strain the old guard gates showed signs of weakness, and Lowell would have been partially inundated, had it not been for the new guard gates erected by the foresight of engineer James B. Francis.
Capt. Phineas Stevens, a practical and expert mechanic, who had been in charge of building the Bay State Mills, took charge of repair- ing the coffer-dam, and no serious accident occurred during further prosecution of this work.
Canals. - The North Canal is 5,330 fcet in length. It is 100 feet wide at the beginning, narrowing to sixty feet at the outlet, and twelve feet deep between the bermes. The course of this canal is par- allel with the river, at a distance of 400 feet therefrom. Between canal and river stand the large mills and workshops, noted for neat- ness of design, regularity of outline, ample spaecs and liberal man- agement. Water was admitted to the completed portion, to the depth of three feet, Nov. 29, 1847. The first appearance of Mer- rimae River at the mill feeders was Dec. 10th following, when water was raised to stand against the walls, and for the first time show the full width. This first filling was of the upper cnd, a temporary dam closing the channel near Union Street. The lower end was not filled until April 20, 1848. This lower section had been constructed over the great gulley, extending from Union Street eastward to the waste weir, requiring vast quantities of filling.
The first important application of power, was Feb. 24, 1848, when water was let upon the great wheel at Bay State Mills, and machinery was actually started in the river building. The pump-wheel at At- lantie Mills had been run for a short time previously, but the turbine- wheel was not started until May 10, 1849. Dec. 5, 1848, water was first let on the turbine at Essex Company's machine shop (now the Everett Mill).
The fall in this main canal from upper locks to waste weir (where surplus waters plunge over granite steps into Spicket River) is three and one-half inches. Locks of wood twenty feet wide, in three lifts of nine to ten feet each, give connection with the Merrimae. The locks at head of eanal ninety-five feet long, twenty-one feet wide, are constructed of hammered granite laid in hydraulic eement.
From this north and principal canal the Pacific Mills (both main and central), Atlantic Mills, Washington Mills, Pemberton Company, Duck Company, Lawrence Woollen Company, and several smaller mills and workshops take supply of water for power through pen- stocks, wasting into the Merrimac. The Everett Mills and a part of the paper-mills take supply through pen-stocks discharging into Spicket River. The lower paper-mills are supplied from this eanal by a pen- stoek carried from the outlet of the canal over Spicket River upon a stone areh. Between this canal and the mills a branch line of railway (double track ) leads from the railroad company's lines.
The south canal is a smaller but very permanent work projected to reach a point near Union Street ; to be, when completed, three-fifths of a mile in length. It is sixty feet wide at beginning, decreasing slightly to outlet, with a uniform depth of ten feet throughout. The supply locks are of solid masonry. On the line of this canal are sev- eral small but flourishing mills and workshops. The entire cost of dam, canals, sluiceways and locks, was seven hundred thousand dol- lars, of which sum nearly two hundred thousand was expended on the south bank of Mcrrimae River.
CHAPTER V.
THE NEW TOWN AND ITS PEOPLE.
LOCALITIES - NAMES - PIONEERS - PECULIARITIES - FIRST BUILDINGS AND ENTERPRISES - LANDMARKS - NEEDS - THE OLD BRIDGE - VISIONARY SCHEMES.
Around the dam and upon lands first sold, in different sections of the city, grew up the new town. As operations extended, and the great mills and machine shop ucared completion, labor was attracted to the place known as " Essex," sometimes as "Andover Bridge," afterwards as "Merrimack." The first post-office was opened on Broadway, near the corner of Common Street, September, 1846. In the same locality was the police court, several pioneer lawyers and physicians, leading traders, the single apothecary, and "Concert Hall." In the same building with the post-office was the police sta- tion. One criminal, just out of this lobby, secured employment by representing that he came from the Merrimac post-office. It was a standing threat among the boys that all offenders would be arrested and put in the post-office.
Active pioneers needed to be many-sided men. In addition to onerous and responsible labor, they were kept constantly on the qui vive to provide for the needs of incoming population.
The new town attracted a mixed population. The industrious and hard-working of all trades and professions came, were successful, and remain to this day, or, have died in harness and rest in honored graves ; with them came unfortunates, speculators, quaeks and pretenders, modern Micawbers who had learned to wait, but not to labor, and for whom nothing ever " turned up " in the busy community.
There was two years' experience of something like lawlessness which would have been dangerous in a community of idlers. In the memo- randa of the pioneer company's agent is this entry under date of Dec. 27, 1846 : "Soon after we began to collect here we found law wanting ; next, churches and a school ; next, the enforcement of law was wanted, and we had constables appointed. Now the law issues its warrant, the eonstables arrest, but the prisoner escapes for want of a jail." Under the same date he says : "The various trades are al- ready well represented here. We have constant applications and cor- respondence relating to business openings ; among others one wishes to know if he can have monopoly of the coffin trade in the new town."
The anomalous condition of things was a novelty in the staid re- gion. Those lands best adapted for building were first sold. These tracts were in different sections, with wild intervening spaces, giv- ing the town the appearance of a number of contiguous villages. Large areas of sandy soil were disturbed, by grading and constant travel of heavy teams on every roadway, bringing stone, bricks, and lumber, giving to the winds great clouds of dust, that penetrated to the wardrobes and parlors of dainty housewives.
For the first years, the town had all the peculiarities of a western pioneer city. The principal business street was built upon one side only, with great gaps of vacant land on the one business side. At first, everything centred about that first important structure, the Great Stone Dam.
" Stone Cutters' Square " was the noisy locality where a small army of workmen were bringing granite blocks, for the dam and loeks, into form. The house now occupied by the gate-tender at Upper Guard Locks, was the first new building, other than temporary shops and storehouses, erected in the new settlement, and was used by the Essex Company as an office for a time. The boarding-house, No. 2 Turn- pike, where Timothy Osgood and his excellent lady entertained crowds of new-comers, with the building adjoining, were the first dwellings of importance erected. The first public sale by the land company was April 29, 1846, when lands upon the lower portions of Essex and Common, and the upper end of Oak and Elm streets were offered, and brought good prices.
The second land sale was April 28, 1847, when lands upon Essex, Common and Oak streets were offered, with a like result.
The foundations and walls of the great mills went gradually up, the Atlantic, Bay State, and the Great Machine Shop buildings, rising like castles from the plain, with few surrounding structures to dwarf or harmonize their immense proportions.
Even after organization as a town, town-meetings were turbulent, methods of doing public business tedious, important subjects could not be properly considered, sanitary and police regulations were in- sufficient. A Sabbath without disorder in some locality was excep-
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
tional. Of sidewalks there were few, even upon Essex Street ; walks of plank and boards spanned the most dangerous reaches of mnd ; streets were so many country roads taking a city's travel ; sewerage was insufficient. The citizen venturing abroad on an inelement night, encountered a dim street-light, here and there, with Egyptian dark- ness between.
There was no uniform system of numbering streets for several years ; the same street would have duplicate numbers in different see- tions. On the common, at one time, a thrifty gardener raised fine crops of Dutch cabbages. At another time, there was a good yield of buckwheat. There were several landmarks by which early residents took their bearings. These were the few large residences of the mill agents and leading citizens. the older church and school buildings, the Catholic church of Fathers Taaffe and French, on Chestnut Street, the old oak that gave the name to Oak Street, and, later, the City Hall, and Oliver school-house, hoth appearing like huge, overgrown, but shapely edifices, waiting for a city to come and reduce their solitary greatness into harmony with something.
Andover Bridge (the present Broadway Bridge) was a sort of wooden artery through which the city's circulation throbhed. It was a rongh, narrow. rambling structure. built by a corporation in 1793, and reconstructed about as often as the humau system renews its tis- sues, from that day to this. Gov. John Hancock signed the Act of iucorporation. The first structure cost four thousand pounds.
When this bridge was opened, Sept. 19, 1793, there was an impos- ing civic and military display, and one hoy, named Stevens, was killed, or died from injuries inflicted by the guard. The struct- ure was frequently swept away by ice and floods. Over the spray of the rapids it went rapidly to decay ; there was constant and fearful financial loss. This old bridge was strengthened and renovated for the sudden influx of travel poured upon it hy the new town. Without footwalks, and crowded with heavy teams and foot-passengers, it was for a time the busiest spot in the valley. The bridge remained as a toll- bridge until 1868, when it was made free, as a puhlie highway, the city paying the larger part of the value, and assuming care of the bridge under the county commissioners' award. At the same time, Lawrence Bridge, at Union Street, built ten years after the founding of the city, was made free in like manner by county commissioners' award.
As might be expected, many visionary schemes were proposed to founders of the city. An eminent edneator insisted that the high and grammar school buildings should stand in the centre of the com- mon. Another enthusiastic pioneer had a scheme for laying out a vast garden-city, a sort of " annex" to Lawrence. to be located east of Prospect Hill, upon the intervales, with streets eight to ten rods wide, and everything in proportion. The rapid rise of land bewildered the old-time lindholders, one of whom proposed to purchase five acres directly north of the common, for a small dairy and milk farm. if the price could be made nominal ; another had an ambition to dwell upon Essex Street, with a house-lot of twenty rods frontage. One gentle- man avers that a visionary philanthropist urged him to plant his low- lands with "peat-seed," and thus raise fuel for the poor; practical jokers having imhued him with much philanthropy, and false ideas of growth. Castles in air were built by visionaries over and all about the veritable structures of brick and stone.
Citizens of the new town were noted for public spirit and enterprise in both private and public affairs. Churches, schools, and organized charities were promptly established and generously sustained. In February, 1847, in a community of .lahorers but a year established, nearly cleven hundred dollars were contributed to sufferers by fam- ine, in Ireland, a further sum being contributed in the Catholic churches.
A large transient population centred here before a mill-wheel turned or a loom was set in place. The first incoming laborers were sturdy Irish emigrants. bringing nothing but strong arms and cheerful spirits. Coming to the bare plain for shelter, they built shanties on the sonth bank of the Merrimac, near the dam, and on Water Street, above the fall. This cheapest form of dwelling, all their nicans allowed, served some for many years ; hut, when the land occupied by these shanties was offered for sale, many of the occupants had accumulated means sufficient to purchase the ground. and replace the humble shanty by a comfortable, spacious, sometimes a tasty dwelling. The Water Street eabins were all removed after the completion of the dam.
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