In about 1824, the Locks and Canals Company of Lowell began to manufacture machinery for the emerging industries of that area, especially cotton mills and machine shops. A few years later they were one of the first American locomotive manufacturers. In 1845, the Lowell Machine Shops was incorporated. The relationship with the Locks and Canals Company is unclear, but in any event the Machine Shops took over the manufacturing activities of the Locks and Canals Company.

The Lowell Machine Shops grew to well over 1000 employees. Their line of machine tools was well respected, and included engine lathes, metal planers, shapers, slotters, gear hobbers, and drill presses, and radial drills. It appears that they stopped making machine tools by 1867, choosing to focus instead on textile and paper machinery. They lasted until at least 1907.

Information Sources

• The Massachusetts corporate registry database lists the first registration of "Lowell Machine Shop" as 1845-01-29.
• Transactions of the American Institute for the year 1850, including awards for that year's Fair of the American Institute: Lowell Machine Shop, Lowell, Mass., for the best large size engine lathe. Gold medal.
• Transactions of the American Institute for the year 1850, including awards for that year's Fair of the American Institute: Lowell Machine Shop, Lowell, Mass., for the best upright drill. Silver medal.
• Transactions of the American Institute for the year 1850, including awards for that year's Fair of the American Institute: Lowell Machine Shop, Lowell, Mass., for an improved iron planer. Gold medal.
• Transactions of the American Institute for the year 1851, including that year's Fair of the American Institute: Lowell Machine Shop, Lowell, Mass., for the best engine lathe, slotting machine, planing and drilling machine. Gold medal.
• Transactions of the American Institute for the year 1851, including that year's Fair of the American Institute: "From the Lowell Machine Shop, Lowell, Mass.—An engine lathe, slotting machine, planing and drilling machines. An excellent display of tools. The planing machine is new for many kinds of work, and the whole reflects much credit on the manufacturers."
• America by River and Rail, by William Ferguson, 1856: "The Lowell Machine Shops, consisting of four shops, a smithy and foundry, make cotton machinery, locomotives, machinists' tools, and mill-work."
• The 1874 edition of The Practical Metal-Workers' Assistant has several etchings of machines from this maker. For example, "...an upright drill, manufactured at the Lowell Machine Shop, Lowell, Mass., and invented by W. B. Bennet, who has invented many other useful metal-worker's tools. The base and frame are of cast-iron; the table that holds the work is elevated or depressed by a screw; the drill feeds down by hand; the drilling-shaft has four changes of speed, and geared with iron cone pulleys. The instrument will drill a hole ten inches from the nearest edge of the object operated upon, and six inches deep."
• The History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, by Samuel Adams Drake, 1880:

  The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals, previous to 1845, built and equipped with machinery all the cotton-mills, with the exception of two, then in operation in Lowell; but since then nearly all the machinery, turbine water-wheels, and mill-gearing have been furnished by the Lower Machine-Shop. The Locks and Canals Company were among the first in this country to build locomotives, and the Lowell Machine-Shop continued the manufacture to some extent; they also made steam-engines, boilers, and machinists' tools. This class of machinery was discontinued a few years since. In 1858 the shop began building paper machinery of the different kinds in use, and it is now one of the departments of its manufacture. Besides the machinery made for the cotton-mills in Lowell, very large quantities have been are are furnished to other mills in the New England States, and to quite a number of the smaller mills in the Southern States.

  J. Huntington Wolcott,, Esq., is president of the corporation; J. Thomas Stevenson, Esq, was the treasurer from the first, till his death in August, 1876. To the strictest integrity in all his dealings he joined a rare ability as a business man.

• From the encyclopedia Library of Universal Knowledge, 1881: "Among its iron works are the Lowell machine shops, incorporated 1845, with a capital of $600,000, employing 1250 hands..."
• William Perrin of Lowell was granted an 1841 patent for a machine for cutting square-joint dovetails. This patent must have been used because 14 years later it was granted an extension. We have not been able to confirm who was manufacturing the lathe but at the 1845 incorporation of the Lowell Machine Shop, Perrin was an employee. It is possible, though far from certain, that Perrins machine was made by the Lowell Machine Shop.
• From The Textile American for 1922: "The Lowell Machine Shops were founded by the proprietors of the Locks and Canals Company at Lowell to build machinery for the development which was carried on there, the year being about 1824."
• American Lathe Builders: 1810-1910 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2001 page 99.
• According to a Practical Machinist post on the history of the engine lathe: "1845 - Lowell Machine Shop, of Lowell, MA; primarily makers of textile machinery, they also made a variety of machine tools, most of which were designed by William B Bement who later became a principal in other companies in the Philadelphia area."