Loammi Baldwin

Colonel Loammi Baldwin (January 10, 1744 – October 20, 1807) was a noted American engineer, politician, and a soldier in the American Revolutionary War.

Baldwin is known as the Father of American Civil Engineering. His five sons, Cyrus Baldwin (1773–1854), Benjamin Franklin Baldwin (1777–1821), Loammi Baldwin, Jr. (1780–1834), James Fowle Baldwin (1782–1862), and George Rumford Baldwin (1798–1888) were also well-known engineers. He surveyed and was responsible for the construction of the Middlesex Canal, but today he is perhaps best remembered for the Baldwin apple which he developed at his farm, or rather he recognized its potential and propagated it throughout the northeast. The apple had been discovered on the farm of John Ball in Wilmington, Massachusetts, around 1750, and named Woodpecker by a later owner of the farm. Colonel Baldwin's promotion of the apple occurred after 1784. He was also a surveyor and plantation co-owner in Hartford, Maine, which at that time was known as East Butterfield.

Baldwin attended grammar school in Woburn, Massachusetts. Later he would walk from North Woburn to Cambridge with his younger friend and childhood neighbor, Benjamin Thompson, later Count Rumford, to attend the lectures of Professor John Winthrop at Harvard College. He and Thompson performed their own experiments at home. Baldwin received a Master of Arts degree from Harvard in 1785.

In 1774 Baldwin enlisted in a regiment, and commanded the Woburn militia at the Battle of Lexington and Concord as a major. He is recorded as having described the events of April 19, 1775 as follows "We mustered as fast as possible. The Town turned out extraordinary, and proceeded toward Lexington." As a major at the time he continues "I rode along a little before the main body, and when I was nigh Jacob Reed's (at present Durenville) I heard a great firing; proceeded on, soon heard that the Regulars had fired upon Lexington people and killed a large number of them. We proceeded on as fast as possible and came to Lexington and saw about eight or ten dead and numbers wounded." He then, with the rest from Woburn, proceeded to Concord by way of Lincoln meeting house, ascended a hill there, and rested and refreshed themselves a little. Then follows a particular account of the action and of his own experience. He had "several good shots," and proceeded on till coming between the meeting-house and Buckman's tavern at Lexington, with a prisoner before him, the cannon of the British began to play, the balls flying near him, and for safety he retreated back behind the meeting-house, when a ball came through near his head, and he further retreated to a meadow north of the house and lay there and heard the balls in the air and saw them strike the ground. Woburn sent to the field on that day, one hundred and eighty men. At the beginning of the war he enlisted in the 26th Continental Regiment commanded by Colonel Samuel Gerrish. Here he rapidly advanced to be lieutenant-colonel, and upon Colonel Gerrish's retirement in August 1775, he was placed in command of the regiment, and was soon commissioned colonel.

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