eral were started, depending upon
the water-power of the Concord River. In 1813, Captain Phineas Whiting
and Major Josiah Fletcher erected a wooden cotton-mill on the site of
the Middlesex Company's mills, and were successful in their enterprise.
John Golding, in the same neighborhood, was not so fortunate.

[Illustration: JOHN-STREET CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.]

The year 1815 is memorable for the most disastrous gale that has
devastated New England during two centuries; it was very severe in
Chelmsford.

The sawmill and gristmill of the Messrs. Bowers, at Pawtucket Falls, was
started in 1816. The same year Nathan Tyler started a gristmill where
the Middlesex Company's mill No. 3 now stands. Captain John Ford's
sawmill stood near the junction of the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

In 1818, Moses Hale started the powder-mills on Concord River. The
following year Oliver M. Whipple and William Tileston were associated
with him in business. In 1821, the firm opened Whipple's Canal. The
business was enlarged from time to time and was at its zenith during the
Mexican War, when, in one year, nearly five hundred tons of powder were
made. The manufacture of powder in Lowell ceased in 1855. In 1818, also,
came Thomas Hurd, who purchased the cotton-mill started by Whiting and
Fletcher and converted it into a woolen-mill. He soon enlarged his
operations, building a large brick mill near the other. He was the
pioneer manufacturer of satinets in this country. His mill was destroyed
by fire and rebuilt in 1826. About this time he built the Middlesex
(Mills) Canal, which conveyed water from the Pawtucket Canal to his
satinet-mills, thus affording additional power. His business was ruined
in 1828 by the reaction in trade; and two years later the property
passed into the hands of the Middlesex Company.

[Illustration: FREE CHAPEL, 1860.]

The year 1818 also brought Winthrop Howe to town. He started a mill for
the manufacture of flannels at Wamesit Falls, in Belvidere, and
continued in the business until 1827, when he sold out to Harrison G.
Howe, who introduced power-looms, and who, in turn, sold the property to
John Nesmith and others in 1831. In the year 1819 a new bridge across
the Concord River was built to replace the old one built in 1774. About
this time the dam across the Concord at Massic Falls was constructed,
and the forging-mill of Fisher and Ames was built. The works were
extended in 1823, and continued by them until 1836,