Hustling Heritage
Amtrak Brunswick to Boston Downeaster train 696 is at MP BW 26 as measured from North Station in Boston via the MBTA Western Route. The train is lead by NPCU 90406 dressed in its Phase III 40th anniversary paint. This locomotive is a former F40PHR built by EMD in July 1988 using components from retired SDP40s. In 2011 it was converted into a non powered control cab and in 2023 it was renumbered to give the 406 slot to a new Charger.
To the left is the famed Ayer Mill Clock Tower, with the world’s largest mill clock. Its four big glass faces are only 6 inches smaller than Big Ben in London. It is the treasured icon and landmark of the community, a hard luck post industrial city that was once an industrial powerhouse trying to reclaim a bit of its past glory
Lawrence was formed in 1843 from land purchased from Methuen and Andover by successful business men from Lowell to establish a new textile manufacturing industry on the banks of the Merrimack River. Periods of boom followed periods of financial difficulty for the huge mills that attracted immigrant workers from all over Europe. By the 1890’s a solution to stability appeared to be consolidation and in 1899 under the direction of Frederick Ayer, eight textile companies merged under a new trust: The American Woolen Company.
In 1906, president of the American Woolen Company, William Wood, Frederick Ayer’s son-in-law, completed construction of a huge new mill intended to produce all the yarn for the company and named it the Wood Worsted Mill. Just one wing of this new mill was half a mile long. The mill spun the fleece of 600,000 sheep in just five hours, but even with this capacity Wood soon realized that it could never produce all the yarn requirements of the company, so he began construction of the Ayer mill, named after his father-in-law, in 1909.
The Ayer Mill, built to spin and dye yarn, was opened on October 3, 1910. Its grand, illuminated clock tower immediately became the architectural focal point of the Merrimack Valley. Decades later the competition of synthetic materials, the migration of the mill companies to southern states, and the end of war-time demand for woolen blankets and clothing doomed northern mills, and The American Woolen Company closed in 1955. Without regular maintenance, the Ayer mill clock soon stopped working. As thousands of residents lost jobs the city fell into major decline and the grand old clock, its disrepair visible to all at 260 feet above street level, became a symbol of the Valley’s economic troubles.
After 36 years, the community rallied in 1991 to restore the clock. Over $1 million was raised and artisans were called in to bring it back to life. Clemente Abascal, a realtor and community activist working on the effort, saw the restoration as a harbinger of hope. “Once the economy starts turning around, the city of Lawrence will come back stronger than ever. That clock symbolizes people at work”, he said. The original bell that had called thousands of people to and from work throughout the city, had been lost for years and was replaced by a beautiful replica.
The train is passing another relic of Lawrence's past, the rusting unused canopies standing behind Lawrence's 1931 brick union station that still stands out of site to the left of the frame. While called a Union Station, that was a misnomer as by that time Lawrence was served by only one railroad, the Boston and Maine, which had opened this route to the New Hampshire state line by 1840.
The first station in Lawrence was built in 1848 when the original tracks from Ballardvale to North Andover were abandoned and the route was relocated to the modern routing through Lawrence south of the Merrimack River. In the mid to later 1800s other railroads built routes radiating north and east from Lawrence, all of which would come into the fold of the B&M over time.
By 1965 the B&M had ended all passenger service to Portland cutting back to Dover, NH and two years later that also was cut and Lawrence was left with a single daily round trip between Haverhill and Boston. By 1976 even that was gone and for three years the city had no service at all. But trains returned three years later with the energy crisis and have remained ever since, though in 2005 this old platform was closed when the Senator Patricia McGovern Transportation Center opened with a new Lawrence train station a quarter mile to the east, replacing this 1931 facility.
In the year 2025 Lawrence sees 26 MBTA commuter trains stop each weekday and in 2001 intercity trains returned when Amtrak Downeaster service commenced between Boston and Portland. Though the 10 daily trains just pass through Lawrence without stopping they do call at Haverhill not far to the north (east) of here.
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Sunday May 11, 2025
Hustling Heritage
Amtrak Brunswick to Boston Downeaster train 696 is at MP BW 26 as measured from North Station in Boston via the MBTA Western Route. The train is lead by NPCU 90406 dressed in its Phase III 40th anniversary paint. This locomotive is a former F40PHR built by EMD in July 1988 using components from retired SDP40s. In 2011 it was converted into a non powered control cab and in 2023 it was renumbered to give the 406 slot to a new Charger.
To the left is the famed Ayer Mill Clock Tower, with the world’s largest mill clock. Its four big glass faces are only 6 inches smaller than Big Ben in London. It is the treasured icon and landmark of the community, a hard luck post industrial city that was once an industrial powerhouse trying to reclaim a bit of its past glory
Lawrence was formed in 1843 from land purchased from Methuen and Andover by successful business men from Lowell to establish a new textile manufacturing industry on the banks of the Merrimack River. Periods of boom followed periods of financial difficulty for the huge mills that attracted immigrant workers from all over Europe. By the 1890’s a solution to stability appeared to be consolidation and in 1899 under the direction of Frederick Ayer, eight textile companies merged under a new trust: The American Woolen Company.
In 1906, president of the American Woolen Company, William Wood, Frederick Ayer’s son-in-law, completed construction of a huge new mill intended to produce all the yarn for the company and named it the Wood Worsted Mill. Just one wing of this new mill was half a mile long. The mill spun the fleece of 600,000 sheep in just five hours, but even with this capacity Wood soon realized that it could never produce all the yarn requirements of the company, so he began construction of the Ayer mill, named after his father-in-law, in 1909.
The Ayer Mill, built to spin and dye yarn, was opened on October 3, 1910. Its grand, illuminated clock tower immediately became the architectural focal point of the Merrimack Valley. Decades later the competition of synthetic materials, the migration of the mill companies to southern states, and the end of war-time demand for woolen blankets and clothing doomed northern mills, and The American Woolen Company closed in 1955. Without regular maintenance, the Ayer mill clock soon stopped working. As thousands of residents lost jobs the city fell into major decline and the grand old clock, its disrepair visible to all at 260 feet above street level, became a symbol of the Valley’s economic troubles.
After 36 years, the community rallied in 1991 to restore the clock. Over $1 million was raised and artisans were called in to bring it back to life. Clemente Abascal, a realtor and community activist working on the effort, saw the restoration as a harbinger of hope. “Once the economy starts turning around, the city of Lawrence will come back stronger than ever. That clock symbolizes people at work”, he said. The original bell that had called thousands of people to and from work throughout the city, had been lost for years and was replaced by a beautiful replica.
The train is passing another relic of Lawrence's past, the rusting unused canopies standing behind Lawrence's 1931 brick union station that still stands out of site to the left of the frame. While called a Union Station, that was a misnomer as by that time Lawrence was served by only one railroad, the Boston and Maine, which had opened this route to the New Hampshire state line by 1840.
The first station in Lawrence was built in 1848 when the original tracks from Ballardvale to North Andover were abandoned and the route was relocated to the modern routing through Lawrence south of the Merrimack River. In the mid to later 1800s other railroads built routes radiating north and east from Lawrence, all of which would come into the fold of the B&M over time.
By 1965 the B&M had ended all passenger service to Portland cutting back to Dover, NH and two years later that also was cut and Lawrence was left with a single daily round trip between Haverhill and Boston. By 1976 even that was gone and for three years the city had no service at all. But trains returned three years later with the energy crisis and have remained ever since, though in 2005 this old platform was closed when the Senator Patricia McGovern Transportation Center opened with a new Lawrence train station a quarter mile to the east, replacing this 1931 facility.
In the year 2025 Lawrence sees 26 MBTA commuter trains stop each weekday and in 2001 intercity trains returned when Amtrak Downeaster service commenced between Boston and Portland. Though the 10 daily trains just pass through Lawrence without stopping they do call at Haverhill not far to the north (east) of here.
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Sunday May 11, 2025