Keepers of the Gate

The productivity of thousands of millworkers depended on skilled gatekeepers at places such as Tremont Gatehouse, where opening and closing sluice gates inside a small brick structure controlled the flow of water and thus power to mills along the Western Canal. These gatekeepers worked within a carefully designed waterpower system developed after 1823, when the huge waterwheel at Merrimack Mills began turning and company engineers sought ways to prevent or reduce fluctuations in power. Water was pooled behind dams to offset dry weather and drought, company agents purchased water rights upriver in New Hampshire, and gatekeepers carefully manipulated machinery inside each gatehouse to regulate the amount of water delivered along the almost six miles of canal. At Tremont Gatehouse, vigilant gatekeepers hand-cranked sluice gates to try to maintain a steady flow of water to Lowell’s power-generating equipment, and after the 1950s electronic equipment at Swamp Locks centralized control of the flow handled at several gatehouses. Even with these efforts, low water sometimes forced mills to slow down.

Lowell, Massachusetts · United States