Amos D. Lockwood

Amos DeForest Lockwood (1811–1884) was an American manufacturer and engineer based in Providence, Rhode Island. He was self-trained as a mechanical engineer, and gradually expanded his scope to all areas of textile mill construction. He was a cofounder, in 1882, of Lockwood, Greene & Company, which would become one of the largest engineering firms in the United States in the twentieth century. Life and career Amos D. Lockwood was born October 30, 1811, in Pawtuxet, Rhode Island, to Captain Benoni Lockwood II and Phebe (Greene) Lockwood. His older brother was ship captain Benoni Lockwood III. At the time of his birth, Lockwood's father was a sea captain, but when he was six the family moved to Providence where Benoni Lockwood took up surveying and civil engineering. At the age of sixteen, the younger Lockwood moved to Rehoboth to work in the store of the Orleans Manufacturing Company, owned by David Wilkinson and Benjamin Peck. After two years he began working as an operative in the Orleans mill, where he remained for another two years. In 1832 he was appointed assistant superintendent of the mills of Almy, Brown & Slater, later S. & J. Slater, in Slatersville, becoming resident agent in 1835. In 1843 Lockwood, along with his brother Moses B. Lockwood and brother-in-law Rhodes B. Chapman, formed the partnership of A. D. Lockwood & Company and leased the mills at Slatersville. In 1851 they bought into the Quinebaug Mills at Brooklyn, Connecticut, taking over management. In 1853 Lockwood organized the Wauregan Mills at Plainfield, Connecticut. The mills were built to Lockwood's design, and from that point forward he was sought after as a mill engineer. In the same year, Lockwood gave up the lease at Slatersville. In 1855 he reorganized the Pacific Mills at Lawrence, and in 1858 was appointed mechanical engineer of the Franklin Company and associated enterprises at Lewiston, Maine, and in 1860 was also appointed resident agent. Lockwood's predecessor at Lewiston was the noted "mill doctor" David Whitman (1799-1858), who had begun a mill machinery repair service in 1832.