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Table of contents
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Abstract
The collection contains letters and accounts relating to construction projects in which members of the Baldwin family were
involved, as well as sketch books and other items.
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Added entries
Subjects
Architectural drawing.
Architecture - Designs and plans.
Baldin, Loammi, Jr., 1780-1838.
Baldwin, George Rumford, 1798-1888.
Baldwin, James Fowle, 1782-1862.
Baldwin, Loammi, 1745-1807.
Boring.
Boston Harbor (Mass.)
Bridges.
Building materials.
Business records - Massachusetts - Charlestown (Boston)
Canals.
Charles River Bridge (Mass.)
Charlestown Navy Yard (Mass.)
Civil engineering.
Coal mines and mining - England.
Dry docks - Massachusetts.
Engineering drawings.
England - Description and travel.
Frost, Benjamin D.
Groundwater - Massachusetts - Boston.
Inventories of decedents' estates.
Lester, Eben A.
Middlesex Canal (Mass.)
Pen drawing.
Pencil drawing.
Railroad engineering.
Railroads.
Sounding and soundings - Massachusetts - Boston.
Technology - History.
United States - Description and travel.
Water-supply engineering.
Watercolor painting.
Waterworks.
Wells - Massachusetts - Boston.
Weston, William.
Genre terms
Account books.
Daybooks.
Drawings.
Estate records.
Inventories.
Ledgers.
Letters.
Sketchbooks.
Sketches.
Watercolors.
Functions and occupations
Civil engineers.
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55x538, 58x23. Charles River Bridge
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Consists of nine notices, dated 1785-1786, informing Loammi Baldwin that his payments for shares of the Charles River Bridge were due, along with a notice that payments had to be made within fifteen days or interest would be charged. Baldwin was one of 89 owners of the bridge. Also included are 29 notices of the place and time of meetings of the Directors of the Corporation, dated 1787-1799. |
92x92.1. George Rumford Baldwin. Notebook and sketchbook kept during the 1820s.
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(123 p.)
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The volume features a few illustrated essays (e.g. "Theory of Canal Cutting" and "Architecture"), but it is mainly a series of identified sketches, mostly in pen, with a few in watercolor, of works and details of civil engineering as well as such objects as weathervanes, wheelbarrows, windmills, and fence posts. Several railways, a rotary pump, a cotton press, the original aqueduct over the Medford River, the Boston mill dam, details of the Schuylkill Canal, the Fairmont Waterworks, a dredging machine, a machine for mixing mortar, and the Essex Bridge at Newburyport are among the places and projects depicted. |
92x92.2. George Rumford Baldwin. Notebook and sketchbook kept during the 1830s.
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(268 p.)
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This volume is almost entirely filled with sketches in pen, pencil, ink wash, and 40 finished watercolors, made by Baldwin as he traveled to study and sketch works of civil engineering. The sketches include railroads, dams, canals, locks, waterworks, bridges, buildings, monuments, etc. The identified locations include New Orleans, Savannah, Washington, Boston, and various places in New England, upstate New York, Montreal, and Ottawa. [A partial list of the sketches in this volume is available at this repository.] |
92x92.3. "Minutes of the history of the Middlesex Canal, 1793-1797, collected from the papers of the late Col. Loammi Baldwin... by
James F. Baldwin in Jan. 1830."
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(100 p.)
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Includes a list of canal acts, subscribers, and building contracts, dated 1799-1803. The minutes discuss the progress of building from the early land survey to letters that consider the construction of canal boats. A few illustrations appear, including six in color that show what are called Weston wheelbarrows. Letters from William Weston, also an engineer on the project, were copied into the volume. A letter from Loammi, Jr., to James Baldwin discussing work on the dry dock at Norfolk is laid in. Also included are two letters from J. B. Straw to Catherine R. Griffiths, the daughter of George Rumford Baldwin. Straw was inquiring about the availability of Baldwin's plans for the canal. |
92x92.4. "The Duke of Bridgewater's Coal Mines at Worseley, 1807," by Loammi Baldwin, Jr.
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(8. p. and 10 watercolors)
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Discusses Baldwin's visit to the site. Baldwin recounts his journey by canal boat into the mines and describes how coal was mined, then brought to the surface, and finally transported to nearby Manchester. Watercolor and wash drawings illustrate boats, a wagon, and some carriers. Also included are drawings of two heads of males, one in watercolor and the other in pencil. |
92x92.5. Accounts approved and sent to the Navy agent, 1827-1833.
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1827-1833.
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(33 p.)
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Records payrolls approved to the purser and accounts approved for the building of masonry dry docks at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Loammi received payment for his expenses and services. The accounts focus on building materials, their prices, and suppliers. |
92x92.6. Inventory of the estate of James F. Baldwin as received from the Exr. of Sarah P. Baldwin. 1870.
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1870.
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(6 p.)
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Consists of a list of Baldwin's financial resources. He held stock and notes in utility and railroad companies. The market value of his investments is included. |
92x97.7. Soundings in the Boston Harbor across Fort Point Channel, 1867 and 1868, by Benj. D. Frost.
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1867 and 1868,
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(100 p.)
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Frost was an assistant to George Rumford Baldwin. Soundings were taken to determine the depth of the water and were valuable to engineers contemplating harbor improvements. |
92x92.8. A statistical account of the wells in the city of Boston taken by Eben A. Lester, July 1834, for Col. Loammi Baldwin.
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July 1834,
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(80pp.)
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The work is organized by street, followed by the name of the owner of the property, the number of wells on each lot, and the quality of the water (soft, hard, drinkable or not, suitable for washing and other conditions). Miscellaneous remarks were also included. |
92x92.9. Waste book. 1827-1834.
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1827-1834.
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(222 p.)
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Account book detailing the expenses of the building of the Charlestown Naval dry docks of which Loammi Baldwin was engineer. (He was paid $4000 per annum plus expenses.) The volume contains details of supplies and construction on a daily basis. |
92x92.10. Ledger book. 1827-1834.
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1827-1834.
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(158 p.)
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Companion volume to the waste book, dealing with the Charlestown dry dock. It breaks down transactions by the name of the firm or individual that had been contracted. Both volumes chronicle the purchase of building materials, including white oak timber, pine plank, bricks, slate, and cast iron. Other commodities that supported the project are also listed: office supplies, food and drink, hand tools, etc. |
92x92.11. Letters, Loammi Baldwin, Jr.
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A red morocco folder with the spine title "Letters" containing blank books that were called "stylographic manifold writers," seemingly an early form of carbon paper. Two of the blank books are filled with copies of letters written from Loammi to family and friends while he was in England. He often wrote of subjects that held his professional interest, such as gas lighting, the London Bridge Water Works, and fire fighting in London, as well as his leisure activities: a visit to Westminster Abbey, a report on debates in Parliament, and a dinner he attended as the guest of the Humane Society. |
92x92.12. Pamphlet from the Woburn Public Library. 1899.
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1899.
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Describes the gift of the Baldwin Library of Engineering Works. The collection was started by Loammi Baldwin and continued by his sons. (The books were subsequently transferred to Harvard.) |
92x92.13. Cross section book.
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The volume opens with sounding and borings taken in 1867. It also includes a number of diagrams depicting water systems and water flow and distribution from 1904. A note indicates that some of the soundings were copied from Frost's field notes (presumably those in .7, above), but no other connection to the other papers in this collection is evident. |
92x92.14. Letters, 1875
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1875
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Consists of stylographic writers, one of which contains letters from George to Emma describing his travels. A letter to H. B. Williams regarding problems with an easement reveals this George to be George T. Moffat. Also included is a lithograph of the Connecticut River Railroad Bridge at Williamsett. George Duggan was the architect and William Endicott & Co. was the lithographer. |