Proprietors of Locks and Canals facts for kids
The Proprietors of Locks and Canals on the Merrimack River is a very old company, started on June 27, 1792. It is one of the oldest companies still around in the United States. When it first began, some of the main people involved were Dudley Atkins Tyng, William Coombs, Joseph Tyler, Nicholas Johnson, and Joshua Carter.
This company was created to build the Pawtucket Canal. This canal was designed to go around the Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River. The falls were in a place called East Chelmsford, Massachusetts. The Pawtucket Canal was finished in 1796. It was over a mile long and had four special sections called "lock chambers" to help boats move up and down. This canal helped move wood and other goods from New Hampshire to shipyards in Newburyport. However, another canal, the Middlesex Canal, opened just ten years later. This new canal went straight to Boston, which made the Pawtucket Canal lose most of its business.
In 1821, a company called The Boston Manufacturing Company bought the Proprietors of Locks and Canals. They made it part of their new company, the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. In the early 1820s, the Pawtucket Canal became super important for the new textile (cloth-making) factories in what became Lowell. It was a big part of the Lowell power canal system. In 1822, Patrick Tracy Jackson became the leader of the Proprietors of Locks and Canals. He had a lot of power to decide where new factories would be built in Lowell and how much they would pay.
In 1825, the company was changed again and became separate from the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. Kirk Boott took charge. This change helped the city of Lowell grow very fast. Many other factories started in Lowell because they could use the water power sold by the Proprietors of Locks and Canals. Paul Moody was one of their first main engineers. Later, in the mid-1800s, James B. Francis led the company. He invented the Francis Turbine, a type of water wheel. He took over when George Washington Whistler left to work on Russia's railway system. James Hayward Harlow was another chief engineer from 1856 until he passed away in 1892.
In 1857, a group called the Middlesex Mechanic Association praised the Proprietors of Locks and Canals. The company had worked hard to find ways to protect wood from rotting quickly. This was very important for making sure the canal structures lasted a long time. The company still exists today! It is in the same building as Boott Hydropower, LLC, which has a small power plant on the Northern Canal in Lowell.
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