Loammi Baldwin papers
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Scope and Contents of the Collection
The collection consists of project records of civil engineer Loammi Baldwin. His dry dock records in this collection date between 1824 and 1834. Correspondence, reports, tide tables, cost estimates, drawings, notes, computations, and court records describe Baldwin's design and construction of dry docks for the United States Navy at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and Norfolk (Gosport), Virginia. Also included are volumes of payroll records, summaries by workers' trades, a register of invoices, measurements of stone used, a register of pile-driving, and a diary of Baldwin's activities in Charlestown. Box 1 includes material of John Ripley Freeman, who acquired Baldwin material in 1903 and 1916 from the Baldwin family. Freeman used the material while working as the chief engineer of the Committee on the Charles River Dam in 1903.
Dates
- Creation: 1824 - 1916
- Creation: Majority of material found within 1827 - 1833
Creator
- Baldwin, Loammi, 1780-1838 (Person)
Access note
This collection is open.
Conditions Governing Use
Access to collections in the Department of Distinctive Collections is not authorization to publish. Please see the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy for permission information. Copyright of some items in this collection may be held by respective creators, not by the donor of the collection or MIT.
Biography
Loammi Baldwin, 1780-1838, class of 1800, Harvard College, was a lawyer and later a civil engineer whose projects included canal construction and harbor improvement, railroads, water power projects, and city water supplies. He was in charge of the design and construction of dry docks at the Charlestown, Massachusetts, and Norfolk, Virginia, Navy Yards. His father (Loammi Baldwin, 1745-1807) was one of New England's first civil engineers, and his brothers, James Fowle Baldwin and George Rumford Baldwin, were railway and hydraulic engineers. The Baldwin family origins were in Woburn, Massachusetts. Loammi was an advocate of engineering education and took students into his office in Charlestown, where they had the use of his family's large library of engineering books, now part of the collection of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries.
Extent
1.4 Cubic Feet (1 legal manuscript box, 7 volumes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Loammi Baldwin, 1780-1838, was a civil engineer whose projects included canal construction and harbor improvement, railroads, water power projects, and city water supplies. The collection includes correspondence, reports, tide tables, cost estimates, drawings, notes, computations, and court records describing Baldwin's design and construction of dry docks for the United States Navy at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and Gosport (Norfolk), Virginia. Project materials date from between 1827 and 1834.
Location
Materials are stored off-site. Advance notice is required for use.
Provenance
Material in box 1 of the collection was separated from the John Ripley Freeman Papers, MC 51, in 1980 to create this collection (accession 77-24). Freeman acquired the Baldwin material in 1903 and 1916 from the Baldwin family of North Woburn, Massachusetts. He used the material while working as the chief engineer for the Committee on the Charles River Dam in 1903. For further explanation of Freeman's interest in the Baldwin papers, see pp. 545-548 of the 1903 Report of Committee on Charles River Dam in box 92 of the Freeman Papers.
Seven volumes dating from 1827 to 1834 were transferred to the Institute Archives by the Woburn Public Library.
Bibliography
- A sketch of the life and works of Loammi Baldwin, civil engineer, read before the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, Sept. 16, 1885, by George L. Vose. Boston: Press of G. H. Ellis, 1885. MIT Libraries: TA140.B34.V6.
- United States. Navy Dept. Report of the Secretary of the Navy, in relation to the construction of a dry dock: rendered in obedience to a resolution of the Senate of 25th May last: January 5, 1825, printed by order of the Senate of the United States. Washington: Printed by Gales & Seaton, 1825.Institute Archives, MIT Libraries (non-circulating): TC361.U66 1825
- Baldwin, Loammi. Report on Introducing Pure Water into the City of Boston. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, & Co., 2nd ed. 1835.
Subject
- Norfolk Navy Yard (U.S.) (Organization)
- Charlestown Navy Yard (Mass.) (Organization)
- Baldwin, Loammi, 1780-1838 (Person)
- Baldwin, George Rumford, 1798-1888 (Person)
- Baldwin, James Fowle, 1782-1862 (Person)
- Title
- Guide to the Papers of Loammi Baldwin (1780-1838)
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Roland Madany
- Date
- (Copyright 1981)
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Sponsor
- Processing of the original accession was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Repository Details
Part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Libraries. Department of Distinctive Collections Repository
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries
Building 14N-118
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02139-4307 US
distinctive-collections@mit.edu
