Loammi Baldwin

Who was Loammi Baldwin?

Colonel Loammi Baldwin 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, Benjamin Franklin Baldwin, Loammi Baldwin, Jr., James Fowle Baldwin, and George Rumford Baldwin 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.