BUILDING 'THE NEW CITY ON THE MERRIMACK': THE ESSEX COMPANY AND ITS ROLE IN THE CREATION OF LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS (WATERPOWER, LAND SPECULATION, MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE)

Founded in 1845, the Essex Company was a waterpower and land development company that created the City of Lawrence, Massachusetts on the Merrimack River. Under the direction of Treasurer Charles Storer Storrow, Essex constructed a dam, power canal, and machine shop, and contracted to build and equip mills for independent textile manufacturing corporations. In the early years, Storrow and Essex investors adhered closely to a model of industrial development that had been established at Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1820s and elaborated at other new industrial cities in Northern New England during the next two decades.; In addition to industrial promotion, Charles Storrow set about building a new city on the Lowell model. He laid out streets and parklands adjacent to the dam, canal, and factory district. Through design and deed covenants he established and enforced functional districts within Lawrence's urban morphology.; Changes in the American industrial economy made many aspects of the Lowell model less appropriate by the 1840s and '50s and forced the Essex Company to modify many of its practices. Only five textile corporations were established at Lawrence during the first decade--hardly enough to fully utilize Essex waterpower, real estate, or machine building capacity. Saddled by large long-term debts, the company divested its machine shop, exchanged land for Essex stock, and continued attempting to promote new industrial enterprises.; Beyond tracing the Essex Company's business misfortunes, "Building The New City . . . ," details some of the mechanics of harnessing and utilizing waterpower, including day-to-day operations, seasonal routines, and responses to extraordinary events. Essex waterpower management extended to the upper reaches of the Merrimack watershed. From 1845 through 1892 Essex, in concert with Lowell's Proprietors of Locks and Canals, controlled the outlets of five of New Hampshire's largest lakes to ensure reliable year-round flows for waterpower customers in Massachusetts.; While this study focuses on the Essex Company's business and technical operations, it makes frequent reference and comparisons to counterparts at Lowell, Chicopee, and Holyoke, Massachusetts, Nashua and Manchester, New Hampshire, and Saco and Lewiston, Maine, thereby providing insights into a regionally important genre of 19th century industrial development.