Kirk Boott

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Kirk Boott (1791 - April 11, 1837) was an American Industrialist instrumental in the early history of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Boott was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1791. He attended the prestigious Rugby School in England, and later went to Harvard College, which he did not graduate. Instead, a commission was purchased for him in the British Army, and after his involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, he returned to Boston in 1817. At this time, he became involved in the Boston Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Massachusetts.

When the Boston Manufacturing Company formed the Merrimack Manufacturing Company in 1822, Kirk Boott was sent to Lowell to be the first agent and treasurer, since the current agent, Patrick Tracy Jackson, had to remain in Waltham. Under his leadership, the Merrimack Company was extremely profitable. When the Proprietors of Locks and Canals, the organization that controlled the canal water and land, was separated from the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, Boott became agent of that firm as well. In this position, he sold the water power the Merrimack Company did not use, allowing many other firms to open operations in Lowell. The city grew quite rapidly around these factories.

Boott, moreso than the other founders of Lowell, was involved in the day-to-day opearation of the town and the lives of its mill operatives. He chose the denomination of the first church (Episcopal), and even was involved in the design of school districts.

Boott died in his carriage at the corner of Dutton and Merrimack Streets in downtown Lowell on April 11, 1837. Some reports say the carriage tipped, other say a back ailment stemming from his time in the military killed him.

His name lives on in the Boott Mills, and perpendicular Kirk Street, which is dominated by the old building of Lowell High School.

[edit] References

Cowley, Charles (1868, republished September 13, 2006). A History of Lowell. Michigan: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library. ISBN 978-1425522018. 

http://ecommunity.uml.edu/lhs/lowell_history.htm