OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : MAY 26, 1863. 129 



One of the Resident Fellows, James Fowle Baldwin, of the 

 section of Technology and Engineering, died suddenly, on the 20th of 

 May, 1SG2, a week before our anniversary meeting. 



Mr. Baldwin was born in Woburn, at the little village of New 

 Bridge, on the 29th of April, 1782. His father, Colonel Loammi 

 Baldwin, was a cabinet-maker and a land-surveyor. The latter occu- 

 pation, more congenial to his taste, led him to the projection of plans 

 foi' the internal improvement of his native county. He devised and 

 carried to successful completion the Middlesex Canal, one of the 

 earliest, and for the time one of the most considerable works of the 

 kind in the United States. He was a native of the same village with 

 Count Rumford, was his constant friend through his political trials, 

 and under his care and that of his son Rumford's daughter, the 

 Countess Rumford, passed the greater part of her life. James, the 

 fourth son of Colonel Baldwin, received the usual instruction of the 

 village school of his native town, and afterwards went to the acade- 

 mies in Billei'ica and Westford. About the year 1800 he was in 

 Boston preparing for a mercantile life, and after a few years was 

 established as a merchant. But the influence of his early associations 

 with his father, and the example of his brother Loammi, who, though 

 educated as a lawyer, had relinquished this profession for that of an 

 engineer, stimulated his own turn for the same pursuit. When 

 Loammi was engaged in the construction of that beautiful and 

 massive work, the Dry-Dock at the Charlestown Navy Yard, the 

 first of its kind in this country, James joined him, and thus commenced 

 in earnest the work of his life. 



In the year 1828, a railroad from Boston to Albany was projected, 

 and Mr. Baldwin was one of the commission appointed by the State 

 to make the surveys. Upon this arduous work he was employed for 

 two years. Although the enterprise was not proceeded with at that 

 time, yet subsequently the Western Railroad, now in operation, was 

 built upon the location selected by him, and his plans for its construc- 

 tion were generally adopted. Mr. Baldwin looked upon this, next to 

 the supply of pure water to the city of Boston, as the most important 

 of his professional works. From 1830 to 1835, he was employed in 

 the construction of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, and in the plan- 

 ning of several of the mills of manufacturing companies in this and 

 the neighboring States. He also determined the relative amount of 

 water-power used by the mills of the different companies at Lowell. 



