LAWRENCE, a manufacturing town of the United States of North America, Essex county, Massachusetts, is situated on the left bank of the Merrimac, 26 miles N. of Boston, and forms the centre of a network of railroads communicating with Lowell, Newburyport, Boston, and other places of importance. Although founded but recently, Lawrence has become one of the chief manufacturing towns in New England, in consequence of the great water-power it derives from the Merrimac. In 1845 the Essex Commercial Company constructed a dam of masonry across this stream, by which a fall of 28 feet was obtained for the whole river. From this dam a canal, from 60 to 100 feet broad, 12 feet deep, and more than a mile long, conducts the water to the various factories situate between it and the Merrimac. The town proper, which is laid out between the latter and a small tributary called the Spicket, has in its centre an open common of 17½ acres in extent, and contains a town-house, gaol, several churches and schools, and a literary institute. The inhabitants are almost all employed in the various factories in the town, some of which are of great size, and one, the Pacific, is said to be the largest in the world. The building has seven storeys, and its flooring covers 16 acres, while the consumption of cotton within its walls amounts to 1,500,000 lb. yearly, and of wool to the third of that amount. It gives employment to about 2000 persons. The manufactures of the town comprise woollen, linen, and cotton goods of various kinds. Incorporated, 1847. Pop. (1848), 6000; (1850), 8283; (1855), about 14,000.