Lowell

How Lowell began

Lowell grew from two rival settlements on the Muskingum River in Adams Township. The first was laid out November 8, 1837, and named for the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, in hopes of similar industrial growth; a competing settlement called Buell's Lowell followed on March 22, 1838, and eventually absorbed the original. Buell's incorporated as a village in 1850 and formally adopted the plain name Lowell in 1889. The community grew up around Lock No. 3 of the Muskingum River's lock-and-dam navigation system, built 1837-1841, which drew mills, tanneries and small factories before railroads and highways ended the river trade. The 2020 census recorded 567 residents.

Platted November 8, 1837 (original Lowell); March 22, 1838 (Buell's Lowell), incorporated 1850 (as Buell's Lowell); renamed Lowell 1889.

Where the name comes from

The original 1837 settlement was named for Lowell, Massachusetts, then a booming mill town, in hopes the Muskingum River would power similar industry. A rival settlement founded the following year, Buell's Lowell, eventually dominated and was incorporated under that name in 1850 before the village formally shortened its name to plain Lowell in 1889.

Before the town

No village, mound, trail or treaty site specific to Lowell is recorded. The Jonathan Sprague House nearby was built in 1800 as the first stone house in the county. The 1881 county history notes 'an extensive group of well defined ancient works on the plain above Lowell', without describing them in its Adams Township chapter.

• Ancient works on the plain above Lowell (earthwork) — plain above Lowell, Adams Township, prehistoric, undated (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1816 — S. N. Meriam sells the first goods in Adams Township, and in 1822 E. Short opens the first store at Upper Lowell and becomes the first postmaster at the place, then called Adams.
2. 1818 — Don Carlos Buell, later a Union major general, is born on March 23 on his grandfather Judge Salmon Buell's farm, which became the site of Lowell.
3. 1837 — The original Lowell is laid out on November 8, named for the Massachusetts mill town.
4. 1837-1841 — Eleven dams and twelve locks are built on the Muskingum River, including Lock No. 3 at Lowell, to improve navigation and provide industrial water power.
5. 1838 — A rival settlement, Buell's Lowell, is founded March 22 nearby.
6. 1842 — Truckson, Lyon & Buck build the Lowell mills, later owned by Dirks & Baldwin.
7. 1850 — Buell's Lowell, having absorbed the original settlement, incorporates as a village.
8. 1851 — The 1881 county history gives May 1851 for the incorporation of Buell's Lowell; Theodore Schreiner is elected the first mayor and S. N. Meriam recorder (Wikipedia says 1850).
9. 1859 — A. Judd builds the Oak mill.
10. 1866 — Wilking, Wendell & Co. build a steam tannery, bought by Rice & Wendell in 1875; Franz Wilking builds a second tannery in 1877 with about the same capacity of 2,500 heavy sides a year.
11. 1867 — Lowell Lodge No. 436, F. & A.M., is chartered October 21, and Lowell Lodge No. 438, I.O.O.F., on August 23, 1869.
12. 1868 — The Baptist church house at Buell's Lowell is built, replacing the 1832 meeting house near Upper Lowell.
13. 1879 — The Lowell planing mill, a manufacturing establishment of considerable importance, burns on May 6.
14. 1888 — The Zanesville and Ohio River Railroad is built across the river from Lowell.
15. 1889 — The village formally adopts the shortened name Lowell.
16. 1970 — The village's population peaks at 852 residents.
17. 2020 — The census counts 565 people in Lowell (the Wikipedia infobox gives 567), down from a peak of 852 in 1970.

Stories

Two Lowells on one river bend

For a brief stretch in the late 1830s, there were two rival towns competing for the same stretch of the Muskingum River: the original Lowell, platted in November 1837 and named for the great Massachusetts mill town in the hope that the river here would power similar factories, and Buell's Lowell, founded barely four months later just alongside it. Buell's version won out, absorbing its older neighbor and eventually taking the incorporated village charter in 1850, though it did not drop the founder's name and become simply Lowell until 1889. What made the location worth fighting over was the Muskingum River improvement project of 1837 to 1841, which built eleven dams and twelve locks -- including Lock No. 3, right at Lowell -- turning the once-wild river into a reliable channel for boat traffic and a source of water power that drew mills, tanneries and small factories to the riverbank for the better part of a century, before railroads and then automobiles made the locks obsolete.

The general's birthplace and the canal that made the town

Lowell stands on ground that was farmland of the Buell family. Don Carlos Buell, who commanded one of the Union's principal armies in the Civil War, was born there on March 23, 1818, on a farm owned by his grandfather Judge Salmon Buell, 'which has since become the site of the town of Lowell', twelve miles above Marietta, according to the 1881 county history. The town itself was made by the state's improvement of the Muskingum River in 1837 to 1841, when a great many men were employed and thousands of dollars spent on the dam, lock and canal here. A speculating company laid out a rival town beside the canal and named it Lowell, hoping it would throw the old Massachusetts Lowell in the shade; the history says the scheme failed, as did similar ones at Taylorsville and McConnelsville, though P. B. Buell's Buell's Lowell grew into a seat of trade. By 1881 the village was more than sixty per cent German, with two steam tanneries, mills, a woollen factory and a saw mill.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · washogs.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Lowell Village96% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Putnam Community Water Association3% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Tri-county Rural W and S District1% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-05-27

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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