Lawrence, MA news and local guide

The Water Power Association, a group of industrialists including Abbott Lawrence, Edmund Bartlett, Thomas Hopkinson, John Nesmith and Daniel Saunders, gained control of the falls on the Merrimack and set aside $50,000 to buy riverfront land. In 1844 they sought incorporation as the Essex Company, chartered on April 16, 1845, and excavation for the Great Stone Dam began on August 1, 1845. The company sold water power to firms such as the Arlington Mills and built mills to order. Known as the New City, Essex or Merrimac until it became a town in 1847, the community was incorporated as a city in 1853 and named for Abbott Lawrence. Canals dug on both banks powered the factories, and workers came from around the world, many of them Irish laborers, in dangerous work. On January 10, 1860, the five-story Pemberton Mill collapsed with 600 to 800 workers inside, many of them Irish women and children. The official death toll was 88, though estimates run from 116 to 145. Sources Wikipedia: Lawrence, Massachusetts