Francis Cabot Lowell

Francis Cabot Lowell, (fran·suhs ka·buht low·uhl) (April 7, 1775

In 1786, Lowell graduated from Phillips Academy. In 1793, he graduated from Harvard College.

Career

In July 1795, after graduation, Lowell set out on a merchant ship carrying cargo to various places including Basque Country in Spain and Bordeaux, France. He went to learn about shipping and being a merchant, but used the trip to learn about France. He spent a year touring France, gripped in revolution. Starting in 1802, with Uriah Cotting, Harrison Gray Otis and others, Francis Cabot Lowell developed India Wharf and its warehouses on Boston Harbor, which became the center of the trade with Asia. He secretly studied the machines. In Edinburgh he met fellow American Nathan Appleton who would later become a partner in the Lowell mills. at Waltham, Massachusetts, using the power of the Charles River. The BMC was the first "integrated" textile mill in America in which all operations for converting raw cotton into finished cloth could be performed in one mill building. Lowell hired the gifted machinist Paul Moody to assist him in designing efficient cotton spinning and weaving machines, based on the British models, but with many technological improvements suited to the conditions of New England. Lowell and Moody were awarded the patent for their power loom in 1815.