LOWELL.

The following is a sketch of the operations of the three largest companies.

THE MERRIMACK Co.,-captial $1,500,000,- have an extensive print works, and 5 cotton mills. They run 34,432 spindles, 1,253 looms, give employment to 1321 females, and 437 males, and make 172,000 yards per week.

The LOWELL Co.,- capital $500,000, manufacture cotton, carpets, rugs, negro cloths, &c. of a very superior quality. They run 4,500 or 5,000 spindles in their cotton mills- 140 cotton and 68 carpet looms- employ 330 females, 150 males, and manufacture in the aggregate about 43,000 yards per week.

The LAWRENCE Co.,- capital 1,200,000, went into operation since either of the above. They run at present four cotton mills, for the manufacture of sheetings and shirtings, No. 14 to 30, 37 to 41 inch wide; another large mill and a bleaching establishment are soon to be in operation.

The whole of the establishments consume yearly 11,239 tons anthracite coal; 4750 cords of wood, and 50,549 gallons of oil. The total amount of cloth made is 39,170,000 yds. per ann. which requires in the manufacture about 12,256,400 pounds of cotton. In the bleacheries, &c. they use 310,000 lbs. of starch, 380 bls. of flour, and 500,000 bushels of coal per annum.

The average sum of money paid to the persons in these establishments, is $89,000 per month.

Besides the above, there are in this place, a flannel factory; the extensive powder mills belonging to O. M. Whipple, card and whip factory, glass works, furnace, &c. employing from 300 to 400 hands.

I believe it is decided on to commence shortly the erection of four new mills, (not thirteen, as has been published,) on a canal now cutting for the purpose. There will still be room and water in the place for five more.- N.Y. Merc. Adv.
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Francis Cabot Lowell (1775-1817), the man who brought the power loom to the United States, envisioned an entire community involved in textile production. Although he died in 1817, his investors kept his vision and purchased land around Pawtucket falls on the Merrimack River as well as the rights to a small canal there. They built several mills, the first of which opened in 1823. This is a report about three of the largest companies in 1835. Collectively they used twelve million, two hundred fifty-six thousand, four hundred pounds of cotton per year. By 1848, Lowell mills produced fifty thousand miles of cotton cloth per year--enough to circle the world twice. Ironically all of the cotton was grown and processed by slave labor in the Southern states while the abolitionist states of the North profited highly from the textiles made with cotton.

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