Kirk Boott

Kirk Boott (October 20, 1790 – April 11, 1837) was an American industrialist who was instrumental in the early history of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Biography Boott was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1790. His father had emigrated to the United States from England in 1783, and worked in Boston as a wholesale merchant. After studying for a time in Boston schools, the son attended Rugby School in England, and later went to Harvard College (class of 1809). Before graduation, Boott left Harvard for England to study civil engineering with the goal of joining the British army.

When he was 21, a commission as lieutenant in the British army was purchased for him. With his regiment, the 85th light infantry, he took part in the peninsular campaign against Napoleon, landing in Spain in August 1813. After Napoleon had been sent to Elba, Boott's regiment was detailed for service against the United States, and took part in the attacks on Washington and on New Orleans. Boott, however, was excused from serving against the land of his birth. ) was also called Kirk Boott.

The carriage that Boott died in was to have another brush with death thirteen years later. According to family lore, Boott's beautiful and thrifty daughter, Mary Love Boott, continued to use the carriage, taking it with her after her marriage to Boston lawyer, Charles A. Welch, in 1844. Welch, who had recently assisted Edward Dexter Sohier in the defense of Dr. John Webster in the notorious and grisly murder and dismemberment on Thanksgiving Day, 1849, of the powerful, wealthy and eccentric Bostonian, Dr. George Parkman, used Boott's carriage to pick up Webster's body after he had been publicly executed on a gallows in Leverett Square. Mary never rode in the carriage again.

Legacy Kirk Boott's name lives on in the Boott Mills, and perpendicular Kirk Street, which is dominated by the old building of Lowell High School. In the Boott Mills, part of Lowell National Historical Park, The National Park Service has restored a weaving room to its 1920s appearance, giving the Park visitor a first hand look at some of the roots of the industrial revolution in the United States.