Lowell Adopts Plan E – 1942

The following originally appeared in part in the 2022 book, Lowell Irish 200. It was also distributed last Sunday as my Substack newsletter on Lowell politics.  In the state election held on November 4, 1942, Lowell residents voted to change the city’s charter. By a vote of 16,477 in favor to…

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Lowell200: Founders Part 4

Thomas Handasyd Perkins – One of Boston’s most successful merchants, Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854) began as a slave trader out of Haiti and then shipped Turkish opium to China for fine silks and crockery. A model of respectability at home, he supported the Boston Athenaeum and a school for the…

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Lowell200: Founders Part 3

John Lowell Jr. – The eldest child of Francis Cabot Lowell, John Lowell Jr. moved to Lowell in 1825 where he became one of the principal shareholders of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company and led the effort to annex the Tewksbury neighborhood of Belvidere to Lowell.  Tragedy struck in 1830 John…

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How we celebrate July 4th by Marjorie Arons Barron

The entry below is being corss posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Picnics, parades, fireworks, and concerts – all wonderfully traditional ways to celebrate the birth of our country and the values embraced in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. In an article published in today’s highly respected Commonwealth…

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