Essex Company Glass Plate Negatives

The Essex Company was charted in 1845 to build a dam and canals on the Merrimack River to provide power for textile mills, with the intent to build a planned city, Lawrence, Massachusetts. The company also built several mills and mill machinery.

In the 1830s Daniel Saunders began buying land on either side of the Merrimack River between Lowell and Andover, in order control the water power rights. With his son, Daniel Saunders, Jr., his uncle, J. Abbot Gardiner, and John Nesmith, he established the Merrimack River Power Association. Saunders then approached the Lawrence brothers (Samuel, Amos, and Abbott) and the Boston Associates. The Boston Associates bought the Merrimack Water Power Association and renamed it the Essex Company.

When Lawrence was incorporated as a town in 1847 and a city in 1853, the Essex Company laid out the streets and built much of the infrastructure. The City Hall and churches were built on land donated by the Essex Company.

Unique among the mill towns in New England, Lawrence, Massachusetts, was planned and development controlled due to the fact that the Essex Company owned most of the land along both sides of the river. The company further controlled development by buying, jointly with Lowell's Proprietors of Locks and Canals, land and water rights along the Merrimack River up to Lake Winnipesaukee, in New Hampshire. This led to the Essex Company becoming a pioneer in water and sewage treatment, developing the United States' first slow sand filter for drinking water.

In 1979 a hydroelectric company acquired the Essex Company in order to make use of the dam.

The above organizational history was condensed from The Lawrence History Center's Administrative History for their Records of the Essex Company of Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845-1987.