TriJ^ FAltIVlER^S MONTHLY V ISITOR. 



131 



iiig comiianies at Lowell, the Locks and Canal 

 coniiiaiiy htwc lieen the locomotive power tliat 

 has put forward all others. The owners of the 

 ■water privileges: their business has been that of 

 building faclories and manufacturing macliinery 

 for the use oi" the great corporations which liave 

 grown from their foiuidation. 



The city of Lowell, under the auspices of the 

 original company, is without a parallel in this 

 counti-y for increase of property and population. 

 No other city cveV 1ms grown up to the extent of a 

 population of more than twenty thousand souls in 

 the space of twenty years. We have no means 

 of knowing how great have been the gains of the 

 proprietors of the original company at Lowell. 

 It is said tliat dividends of twenty, twenty-five, or 

 more per cent., aimually, have refunded several 

 times over the amount of original investment; 

 and that the stock, after all these dividends, bears 

 a price of two or three times its first cost. All 

 the corporations growing out of this, to the 

 amount of more than ten millions, retain at least 

 their par value at times when manufactures have 

 been so depressed as to give no dividend. 



The Boston and Lowell railroad, an undertak- 

 ing devised and carried through under the ]ier- 

 sonal superintendence of Mr. Jackson — more ex- 

 pensively done and more permanently construc- 

 ted than any other railroad in the United States — 

 virtually annihilates space between the city of 

 Lowell and the seaboard. Independent of the 

 passenger cars passing between Lowell and Bos- 

 ton four limes a day eacji wa}-, the merchandize 

 transport trains now pass and repass as many 

 times each way. One hundred ton.s a trip is the 

 average amount carried. What would ha\'e been 

 thought twenty years ago of carrying and fetch- 

 ing fi'om any one point out of Boston, at the dis- 

 tance of t\venty-five xiiiles, eight hundred tons of 

 any or all kinds of commodities? The common 

 price of transj)ort from Boston to I^owell is two 

 dollars the ton ; the manufacturing corporations, 

 being in some degree connected with the rail- 

 road coi'poration, having separate tracks, after 

 the arrival at tlie depot, leading to each establish- 

 ment, pay only one dollar and fifty cents a ton 

 for transport. We think the time not very dis- 

 tant when the price of transport on all the i)rin- 

 cipal mail roads in New-England will he reduced 

 from one-third to one-lialf When n railroad 

 siiall be completed to this point, (Concord,) which 

 must in the natural course of things take plare 

 within three or four jears, we sluill probaltiy be 

 able to go seventy miles to Boston in trom three 

 to four hours, at an expense of one dollar and a 

 half to two dollars, and the transport of a ton of 

 produce or merchandize at the same time will not 

 cost mucli over two dollars. 



Viewed from the liirm of John Nesmith, Esq., 

 near the village of Belvidcre, (formerly a part oi' 

 Tewlisbiny.) on the east side of Concord river, 

 the city of Lowell appears larger than the city 

 of Boston was in the year 1798, vie^v-ed from the 

 dome of the State House on Beacon hill, which 

 had then just been erected. Overlooking Low- 

 ell, the view 'is more interesting from the sub- 

 stantial character of the buildings. All the fac- 

 tories, and all the recently constructed dwelling- 

 houses belonging to the several corporations, are 

 made of brick ; and the brick buildings are gen- 

 erally covered with Welch slate. The slating 

 has been almost exclusively done by one enter- 

 prising, hard-working individual, by the name of 

 Wavgh, who will complete the roof of a build- 

 hig in a much less space of time than the most 

 expert carpenters would cover it with shingles. 

 It is said that t'lc covering of Welch slate will 

 last one Inuidred years ; if so, it is much cheaper 

 than shingling, at the prices charged by Mv. 

 Waugh, independent of the great security it gives 

 against fire. At the recommendation of the editor 

 of the Visitor, while in oflice, the State House in 

 Concord was lately covered with Welch slate by 

 Waugh. This building had been covered with Mr. 

 white pine-heart shingles when it was built in 

 1816 ; these had decayed so as to become leaky 

 in some places. The slate was laid on directly 

 over the shingles, covering the roof anew, at the 

 same time the building, lilsc the well constructed 

 arch of a bridge, was strengthened by the addi- 

 tional weight thrown upon the roof. On a par- 

 ticular examination of the shingled roof, it was 

 found that the sparks from the chimneys had 

 caught in several places and gone out, so that the 

 house narrowly escaped conflagration. The sub- 



stitution of slate for common shingles upon a 

 building the body of which is granite, is an im- 

 provement in appearance which makes the Capi- 

 tol of the Granite State look far better in 1840 

 than it did in 1810, when it was first built. 



To return to Lowell, the new city of New 

 England ; its limits have been much extended 

 since the year 1833, \-\hen we Avent over it. The 

 compact part, which shows to be almost entirely 

 brick, spreads over a large extent of ground, and 

 beautifid white houses overlook it, as well from 

 the heights on the southwest and on the east of 

 the village of Belviderc, as from the highest point 

 of ground in Dracut; on the easterlj' side of Mer- 

 rimack river. Lowell is surrounded by hills in 

 almost every direction. It is is situated in a ba- 

 sin or amphitheatre, w hich for many ages subse- 

 quent to the time when the mountains were first 

 thrown out of the bosom ef the deep \raters by 

 Omnipotent Power, was evidently the bottom or 

 bed of an extensive pond or lake, the waters of 

 which broke through the gorge below Patucket 

 falls, and in that direction found their way to the 

 ocean. Previous to this the country was sid)- 

 merged all the way back to the Amoskeag falls, 

 30 miles above, where another breaking through 

 of the ridge united aeother body of water, mak- 

 ing the chain of lakes one continuous stream. 



Tlie grounds round about Lowell, especially 

 the lower grounds through which the old Mid- 

 dlesex canal and the railroad piu-sue their way 

 towards Boston, is poorer than the avei-age lands 

 of New England. There is much of the siutken 

 meadows in the direction of Chelmsford, Biller- 

 ica, Wilmington, and Wobuni. Tliese meadows 

 have, in some cases, produced inferior hay for 

 more than a hundred years ; in some of these 

 the quantity and quality have been so much de- 

 teriorated that they have been abandoned by the 

 scythe. One dollar on<! hundred j'ears ago was 

 ■\vorth two dollars of the present day. The price 

 of these meado\\s then was fifteen and sixteen 

 dollars the acre: lately it has not been higher 

 than ten dollars. 



We are glad to find that the attention of far- 

 mers in the vicinity of Lowell has been turned 

 to the renovation of these meado^^s. When 

 drained and reclaimed they are found to he the 

 most profitable of all lands. It costs several 

 times th(^ price of an acre to accomplish the ol)- 

 ject ; hut Avlien the work is done tlie money is 

 well expended. The farmers in the vicinity of 

 Lowell are not inattentive to the benefits which 

 may be dei'ived from their low meadows. The 

 black earth or peat taken from the ditches is 

 carted out and placed either in some convenient 

 pan upon the side of the highway or elsewhere 

 for iht^ y)ur))ose of makhig compost manure, or 

 else dried and carted to the door-yards tor fuel. 

 After tlie process of draining is gone through 

 with by ditching and constructing drains to carry 

 away the surplus water, the next object is to con- 

 vey to the ground the material wliich shall ena- 

 ble it to bring out the highest i>roduction. Where 

 the black vegetable mould exists to the depth of 

 fs\ o or three feet, tlie material most useful is sim- 

 ple gravel or sand. !n one instance, near Lowell, 

 we saw the men carting from a knoll the clear 

 gravel, and layiiig it over the meadows to the 

 depth say of six inches. V/ith a very slight stim- 

 ulant of stable or other manure, in addition to 

 the admixture of the old soil with the gravel, 

 it need not be doubled that the old Horn out 

 meadows may be made to produce, for many 

 successive years, an nh;indant crop of the very 

 best English hay — herds-grass, clover, or red-top. 

 .\ case of this' renovated meadow ground at 

 Chelmsford, two or tliree miles out of Lowell, 

 was mentioned to us, where the production of 

 hay was niore than one and one-fourth ton, the 

 l)rescnl year, tmon one-fourth of an acre. 



Wo made only a ride of some tw o nfiles out of 

 Lowell Oil the Tewksbury road, during a sjjare 

 hour on the afternoon of "the 9th of September. 

 In this distance there were as many as three dif- 

 ferent hog or low meadm^'s, which were under- 

 iug the operation of improvement, such as we 

 ve" been describing. The evidences of im- 

 provement in the farms of this part of Tewks- 

 bury, within a very feNV years, arc ]n-ominent — 

 they are evinced both in the neat dwellings and 

 barns, and in the fruitful orchards hanging tiill 

 witli the ripening fruit, and in the fields from 

 which large crops of grass and the earlier grains 

 have already been taken, leaving others with the 



standing ripening corn and abundance ef other 

 vegctubles. 



The farmers about Lowell have great encour- 

 agement to increase their vegetable crops for the 

 market wliich the population of the city affords. 

 They are as well rewarded for their labors here 

 as the farmers can be in the vicinity of Boston. 

 One gentleman at Tewksbury, from a farm of no 

 very great extent of acres, but which was ex- 

 tremely well culli^■ated, is said to have taken from 

 it in a single season, in the Lowell market, a sum 

 not le.'is than fi\e thousand dollars. 



TABLE OF THE LOWELt CORPORATIONS. 



goi 

 hav 



Total, 10,500,000 32 166,041 



The Merrimack. Manufactures 230,000 yards 

 of cloth ; dyes and prints 19.5,000 yards of cali- 

 coes, and consumes ,'5.'),000 lbs. of cotton weekly. 



Hamilton. Makes 110,000 yards, and prints and 

 dyes 70,000 yards calicoe per week. 



Lowell. Makes 2500 yards carpeting, 150 rugs, 

 and 70,000 yards negro cloth per week. 



Middlese.T. jMakes 0300 yards cassimere, and 

 1500 yards broadcloth, per week. Consumes 

 600,000 lbs. wool, and 3,000,000 teasels, per an- 

 num. 



Suffolk, makes 90,000 yards drillings, No. 14, 

 per week. 



Tremont. Makes 145,000 yards shirtings and 

 sheetings. No. 14, per week. 



Lawrence. Makes 200,000 yards printing cloths, 

 sheetings and shirtings. No. 14 to 30, per week. 



.Boo^ Makes 1.5,5,000 yards th-illings No. 14, 

 shirtings No. 40, and print cloths No. .50. 



Locks and Canals. Employs 500 men ; works 

 1225 tons wrought iron per year ; uses 200 chal- 

 drons of Liverpool coal, and 200 tons of anthra- 

 cite coal. Manufactures machinery for the mills, 

 cars and engines for the railroads. It can com- 

 plete 5000 spindles in four months. When build- 

 ing mills and machinery, this Company employs, 

 directly and indirectly, from ten to twelve hun- 

 dred men. 



The number of yards of cloth made at the 

 Lowell mills in a year is 58,26.3,400; the pounds 

 of cotton consumed, 19,255,600, making 53,340 

 bales. 



A pound of cotton averages 3 2-lOths yards of 

 cloth; and 100 lbs. of cotton produces 89 lbs. of 

 cloth. 



The average price of work of females at the 

 mills is two dollars per week ; average price for 

 males, exclusive of board, eighty cents per day. 



One jiower-loom turns out. No. 14 yarn, 44 to 

 45 yards of cloth per day; ofNo. 30, thirty yards 

 per day. 



One spindle averages yarn for 1 I -10th yards 

 per day. 



The average amount of wages paid by the Cor- 

 porations per month, $160,000. 



Starch consumed in a year, 600,000 lbs. Flour 

 used for starch, &c., 3000 barrels peranniun. 



Besides the foregoing Corporations, there are 

 at Lo\vell the Powder Mills of O. Whipple, Esq.; 

 the Lowell Bleaching, with a capital of .'«<.50,000; 

 a Flannel Mill ; Blanket Mill ; Rolling Mill ; Pa- 

 per Mill; Card and Whip Factory ; Planing Ma- 

 chine ; Reed Slachine ; Flour, Grist, and Saw 

 Mills. These employ about 300 hands, and a 

 capital of $300,000. 



AMOSKEAG. 



The foundation of the largest compact town or 

 city in Nimv Hampshire has been laid at the Amo- 

 skeag Falls, being the longest fall of water in the 

 whoh- course of the river Merrimack, and jn-oba- 

 bly the greatest and most valuable water power 

 in New England. The old works of the Amo- 

 skeaif Company were erected at the village on 

 the west side of the river, near the head of the 

 falls, some twenty-five years ago. The works 

 gradually extended over the lesser branch of the 

 river to one of the several islands tlirough which 



