Carding, drawing, and roving machines were also built and installed in the mill, these machines gaining greatly, at Moody's expert hands, over their American rivals.

This was the first mill in the United States, and one of the first in the world, to combine under one roof all the operations necessary to convert raw fiber into cloth, and it proved a success.

Lowell, says his partner Appleton, "is entitled to the credit for having introduced the new system in the cotton manufacture." Jackson and Moody "were men of unsurpassed talent," but Lowell "was the informing soul, which gave direction and form to the whole proceeding." The new enterprise was needed, for the War of 1812 had cut off imports.
The beginnings of the protective principle in the United States tariff are now to be observed.

When the peace came and Great Britain began to dump goods in the United States, Congress, in 1816, laid a minimum duty of six and a quarter cents a yard on imported cottons; the rate was raised in 1824 and again in 1828.

It is said that Lowell was influential in winning the support of John C.Calhoun for the impost of 1816.
Lowell died in 1817, at the early age of forty-two, but his work did not die with him.