Scope and Contents
Photographs of water turbines, canal construction and repair, flooding from spring runoff (freshets), ice dams, various buildings in the Lawrence, Massachusetts, area. Also included are photographs of scenery, family groups, houses, and othe buildings. Hurricane and tornado damage are also pictured.
Boxes 1 through 10 of this collection are prints made from the glass plate negatives in Collection 6633 GPN.
Dates
- 1872-1967
Creator
- Essex Company (creator, Organization)
Language of Materials
Collection material in English
Conditions Governing Access
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.
Biographical / Historical
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.
Extent
8.78 cubic feet
Abstract
Photographs of water turbines, canal construction and repair, storm damage, as well as other subjects. Most of the photographs were taken in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Quantity:
8.3 linear ft.
Forms of Material:
Albumen print, cartes-de-visite (card photographs), gelatin silver print, lithographs, photographs, photomechanical processes, photomechanical prints.
General
- Contact Information:
- Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives 227 Ives Hall Tower Road Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183 kheelref@cornell.edu https://catherwood.library.cornell.edu/kheel/
- Compiled by:
- R. Miles, November 10, 2017
- EAD encoding:
- Randall Miles, January 04, 2018
Processing Information
Not all photographs in this collection are described. Only those that had descriptions from the American Textile History Museum have been described. The prints in boxes 1 through 10, which are from the glass plate negatives in collection 6633 GPN: Essex Company Glass Plate Negatives, have not been described. The described photographs may include some that were printed from negatives in 6633 GPN.
- Atlantic Cotton Mills
- Atlantic Mills (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Ayer Mill (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Billboards
- Bodwell House (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Boston (Mass.)
- Brattleboro (Vt.)
- Bristol (N.H.)
- Cambridge (Mass.)
- Canal Street (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Canals -- Design and construction
- Carding
- Champion International Corporation
- Chimneys
- City Hall (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Combing machines
- Connecticut River
- Dams
- Dams -- Design and construction
- Dams -- Maintenance and repair
- Den Rock (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Disasters
- Dwellings
- Eastern Connecticut Power Company
- Essex Company (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Everett Mills
- Executives
- Factories
- Farwell Bleachery (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Floods
- Franklin (N.H.)
- Franklin Falls (Franklin, N.H.)
- Franklin Falls Dam (Franklin, N.H.)
- George E. Kunhardt Corporation
- Hampshire Street Bridge (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Haverhill (Mass.)
- Holyoke Machine Co.
- Hood School (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Housing
- Hydraulic turbines
- Labor
- Lawrence (Mass.)
- Lawrence (Mass.) -- Officials and employees
- Lawrence Duck Company (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Lawrence Gas & Electric Co. (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Lawrence Gas Company (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Lawrence Machine Shop
- Lawrence Tornado of 1890
- Longfellow Bridge (Boston and Cambridge, Mass.)
- Loring Street Bridge (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Lower Pacific Mills (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Ludlow (Mass.)
- Ludlow Manufacturing Associates
- Machine shops
- Male employees
- Mayors
- Merrimac Paper Company
- Merrimack River (N.H. and Mass.)
- Merrimack River Dam (Mass.)
- Merrimack Valley Country Club (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Munroe Felt and Paper Company
- Newfound Lake (N.H.)
- North Canal (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Pacific Mills
- Pemberton Manufacturing Company
- Pemigewasset River (N.H.)
- Pine Street (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Plymouth Fibre Mills
- Public buildings
- Railroad bridges
- Railroads
- Revere House (Lawrence, Mass.)
- S. Morgan Smith Co.
- Sailboats
- School superintendents
- Shawsheen River (Mass.)
- Spicket River (N.H. and Mass.)
- Steamboats
- Textile factories
- Textile industry
- Textile machinery
- Textile manufacturers
- Textile workers
- The James Leffel & Co.
- Tornadoes
- Transportation
- Turbines
- Union Park (So. Lawrence, Mass.)
- United States
- United States Worsted Corp
- United States. Army. Corps of Engineers
- Upper Pacific Mills (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Washington Mills (Lawrence, Mass.)
- Water-power
- Water-wheels
- Wood Worsted Mill (Lawrence, Mass.)
- York Manufacturing Company (Saco, Me.)
- Title
- Essex Company Photographs
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Compiled by R. Miles
- Date
- January 04, 2018
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Revision Statements
- 02/23/2024: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
Repository Details
Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository