Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/346

318 The Lowell Horse Railroad Company and the First National Bank were incorporated in 1864. The French-Canadians

began to settle in Lowell just after the war.

In October, 1866, Dr. J. C. Ayer presented the city with the statue of Victory which stands in Monument Square.

The Old Ladies' Home was dedicated July 10, 1867. St. John's Hospital was completed and opened in 1868. It occupies the site of the old yellow house built in 1770 by Timothy Brown. In November of the same year the first meeting of the Old Residents' Historical Association of Lowell was held at the store of Joshua Merrill; in December, the city was visited by General Grant.

In 1869, the city authorities undertook a system of water-supply works which was completed four years later; the Lowell Hosiery Company was incorporated in May. The Thorndike Manufacturing Company commenced operations in June, 1870.

The fire-alarm telegraph was introduced in 1871; in August, trains on the Lowell and Framingham Railroad commenced running; in November, the new iron bridge across the Merrimack was finished; during the year, the city suffered severely from the scourge of sniall-pox.

The boundaries of Lowell were extended, in 1873, to include Middlesex Village, taken from Chelmsford, and a part of Dracut and Tewksbury. A new railroad by the way of Andover connected Lowell with Boston in 1874.

The city celebrated the semi-centennial of its incorporation, March 1, 1876.