laid out. During this year appeared the Lowell Offering, a monthly
journal, edited by Miss Harriet Farley and Miss Hariot Curtiss, two
factory girls. The journal was praised by John G. Whittier, Charles
Dickens, and other gifted writers, for its intrinsic merits.

Lowell is largely indebted to Oliver M. Whipple for its cemetery, which
was consecrated June 20, 1841. It contains about forty-five acres, and
has near the centre a small gothic chapel.

In January, 1842, Charles Dickens made a flying visit to Lowell, and has
left on record in American Notes his impressions of the city.

During this period the court-room of the city was occasionally graced by
the presence of Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate.

The City Library was instituted in 1844.

The Stony Brook Railroad Company was incorporated in 1845.

The Honorable Nathan Crosby was appointed justice of the police court in
1846, and still continues in office. The Lowell and Lawrence Railroad
was incorporated this year, and the population of Lowell numbered
29,127.

[Illustration: SAINT ANNE'S CHURCH, 1840.]

President James K. Polk visited Lowell in 1847; and the city met with
the loss of Patrick Tracy Jackson, a man whose name should be always
honored in Lowell. The great Northern Canal was completed this year by
James B. Francis, the most distinguished hydraulic engineer in the