Wamesit Canal-Whipple Mill Industrial Complex

Along the Concord River in southeastern Lowell, this four-acre complex combines a hand-dug waterpower canal with a cluster of mill buildings on an island. Oliver M. Whipple built the Wamesit Canal in 1821-22, consulting engineer Loammi Baldwin, to power his gunpowder works and other small mills. His rubble stone powder mill, built about 1821, is the city's oldest industrial structure; its powder was exported abroad and supplied to American troops in the Mexican War. The island was created when the canal was extended to River Meadow Brook in 1846. Later the Stirling Woolen Mill rose here, with a brick main building of 1880, enlarged in 1896, a carbonizing house of 1907, a storehouse, a powerhouse, and a wooden truss bridge of about 1880. The complex is notable for contrasting with the heavily financed corporate canal system run by the Merrimack River companies, and for offering a separate, comparable waterpower technology.