Essex Company Machine Shop, also known as Stone Mill or the Lawrence Machine Shop, is a historic

machine shop A machine shop or engineering workshop (UK) is a room, building, or company where machining, a form of subtractive manufacturing, is done. In a machine shop, machinists use machine tools and cutting tools to make parts, usually of metal or plast ...

on Union Street in

Lawrence, Massachusetts Lawrence is a city located in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, on the Merrimack River. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 89,143. Surrounding communities include Methuen to the north, Andover to the southwest, and Nort ...

. It was built in 1846 and added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1972.

History

The Essex Company was incorporated on March 20, 1845, for the purpose of creating a manufacturing town on the

Merrimack River The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an occasional earlier spelling) is a river in the northeastern United States. It rises at the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, New Hampshire, flows southward into Mas ...

. The town eventually became Lawrence. Essex Company Complex

To attract manufacturers, the Essex Company dammed the river with the

Great Stone Dam The Great Stone Dam (also called the ''Lawrence Dam'' or ''Lawrence Great Dam'') was built between 1845 and 1848 on the site of Bodwell's Falls on the Merrimack River in what became Lawrence, Massachusetts. The dam has a length of and a height of ...

and created a canal to provide a power source for future businesses. The machine shop was created at the head of the canal as part of a foundry to service the Essex Company and tenant manufacturers. The facility consisted of the machine shop, a foundry, a forge shop containing 32 forges, and a chimney connected via an underground flue to the forges. The entire complex was warmed by steam and had power provided by two Fourneyron water turbines. A branch of the

Boston and Maine Railroad The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. Originally chartered in 1835, it became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the end of 1970, B ...

encircled the complex to allow for delivery of raw materials and coal. In 1850, the complex employed 400 but was designed with the capacity to employ 800-1000 workers.

Description of the building

The machine shop building is one of the few remaining structures from the original Essex Company site. It is long and wide. It is four stories high and was designed to allow access to steam locomotives. The other surviving structure is the 142' (43 m) high chimney.

References

Buildings and structures in Lawrence, Massachusetts Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Lawrence, Massachusetts Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts {{EssexCountyMA-NRHP-stub

History

Description of the building

See also

References