Operating Lowell's canals required many employees. Every spring they repaired damage caused by the harsh New England winter, including straightening iron pins in a blacksmith shop near the dam to hold new wooden flashboards atop the masonry dam. Throughout the year workers cleaned the canals, removing debris before it could jam equipment and impede flow, and as winter returned they chopped ice to free gates and unclog canals. Gatekeepers held a special status, and beginning in 1848 Daniel Brooks lived for thirty years in the house behind the Pawtucket Gatehouse, where he channeled the river into the Northern Canal by manipulating ten large sluice gates powered by the first turbine designed by James B. Francis.

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