Central Falls Walking Tour Preservation Society of Pawtucket

Central Falls takes its name from a waterfall on the Blackstone River where in the mid-eighteenth century Benjamin Smith built a trench to divert water power to his snuff mill, and where in 1811 Captain Stephen Jenks built a trip-hammer and blacksmith shop and was contracted to produce muskets for the United States government. It was Stephen who would choose the name Central Falls for the town.

Central Falls, like Pawtucket, was originally part of the town of Providence. Between 1675 and 1725, many people in Providence moved into the wilderness north and west of the city. People migrated so rapidly that in 1730 the "outlands " were divided into the three townships of Smithfield, Scituate and Glocester. Smithfield was at first an agricultural territory, but as cotton production expanded, several factories were built there. The Blackstone River was the area’s eastern boundary. The Providence and Worcester railroad, completed in 1847, followed the course of the Blackstone, and accelerated the growth of these manufacturing villages. In that same year, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed an act to establish the Central Falls Fire District within the town of Smithfield.

In 1871, Smithfield was divided further and the town of Lincoln was established. Lincoln included the district of Central Falls, which by then was a center of production and commerce, similar to the village of Pawtucket, and different from the rest of Lincoln. Permission was given to the district to tax citizens for services such as street lights, a police force, water supply, and a free library (the fire district had essentially become a municipal corporation). At the same time, the town of Lincoln was taxing citizens for schools, roads, services for the poor, and the expenses of town government. The burden of two sets of taxes and having two administrations was problematic. People in the rural districts of Lincoln objected to the large expenditures of money in Central Falls, which did not directly benefit everyone in the town.

At the same time, the wealthy mill owners who dominated local politics became worried that the thousands of newly arrived immigrants would gain political strength. Incorporating Central Falls as a city was a way to prevent naturalized citizens from participating in local government, since the Rhode Island constitution at the time did not allow foreign-born citizens to vote in elections unless they owned at least $134 of taxable property.

The City of Central Falls was created in February of 1895 and the government was organized with Charles P. Moies as its first mayor.

The story of immigration in Central Falls, closely matches that of Pawtucket. In the early 19th century, immigrants were mostly skilled textile workers, particularly weavers, from England and Scotland. People from Ireland began to arrive in the 1820s; they were laborers who worked on projects such as digging the Blackstone Canal and laying tracks for the railroad lines. Later immigrants from Ireland more often worked in the cotton mills. In the second half of the 19th century, factories were converting to steam power and were able to move away from the overcrowded shoreline of the river. The Civil War boosted manufacturing and there was a great demand for products, but a shortage of workers. Mill owners then began to recruit French speaking people from Canada to work in the factories. In the early years of the 1900s, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants settled along Washington Street and established St. Ephraim’s Church. Beginning in 1917, Portuguese speaking peoples arrived and established a community near Valley Falls.

By the early twentieth century, New England factories were having a hard time competing with the rapid industrialization of the Southern states. Despite the boom during World War I, the Great Depression of 1929 further weakened the economy; factories closed and workers moved to other jobs. The remaining workforce grew older, younger generations moved away to the suburbs, and by the 1970s, Central Falls had a shortage of skilled laborers. Then, Spanish speaking people from Colombia, Puerto Rico, Guatemala and The Dominican Republic arrived and kept the mills going.

Most of the buildings in Central Falls are from the mid-late 19th century, ninety percent of the houses pre-date 1939. There are no civic or church buildings from before the Civil War. As the population increased, so did the demand for housing lots. Land values increased and owners subdivided their lots to build houses on any available space, including, in many cases, behind other houses. Zoning laws were not in place until the 1960s, so the land patterns are erratic and houses were built with no particular stylistic treatments.

Jenks Park, Broad Street Alvin Jenks, a machinist, donated four acres of land in 1890 to create a park in Central Falls. The park features iron “umbrella” pavilions built by the Fales and Jenks machine factory, of which Alvin Jenks was a co-founder (with David Fales). Since 1890, the park has had improvements such as the construction of paths, a fountain, and an elevated observatory platform from which there is a magnificent view of the city. Jenks Park now often serves as a gathering place for public events.

Cogswell Tower The centerpiece of Jenks Park is the Cogswell Tower, which stands seventy feet high and has a clock face on each side. The tower was built on Dexter’s Ledge, the highest point in the city, and is supported by a barrel vault. Caroline Cogswell was the wife of Providence dentist Henry Cogswell (the namesake of the Cogswell Fountain on the corner of Main and Roosevelt in downtown Pawtucket). This tower is a gift from her to the City of Central Falls. It was designed in 1904 by Pawtucket architect Albert Humes, who served as the mayor of Central Falls in 1903-4. Albert’s brother George was the contractor.

Make your way back to Broad Street to see the City Hall building

Central Falls, City Hall/Lincoln High School, 580 Broad Street This Queen Anne style structure was designed by Albert Humes and completed in 1888 as a high school in the town of Lincoln, for students in the district of Central Falls. It was the first school constructed solely for secondary education; earlier schools housed both elementary and secondary grades. When Central Falls was incorporated as a city, this building became the Central Falls High School. In 1927 it was converted to house municipal offices. With the fire station, police station, and the courthouse nearby, this section of Broad Street became the municipal core of the city

Walk to the yellow brick Notre Dame church building next to the park. Notre Dame (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart), 668 Broad Street Large numbers of French speaking people from Canada, mostly Quebec and New Brunswick, settled in this area, raising the population from 1,500 to 9,000 in just fifteen years, between 1855 and 1870. Driven by depleted farmlands and poverty, the Canadiens sought prosperity in the expanding mill industries of New England.

For the first time, Central Falls and towns throughout the Blackstone Valley had to accommodate people who did not speak English; French-speaking churches, newspapers, and schools were established. The original Notre Dame church, built in 1875, was the first to be constructed by a French-Canadian parish in Rhode Island.

In the 1920s, the pastor of Notre Dame, Reverend Joseph Beland, was a leader of a movement which opposed the Irish Bishop of Providence whom they accused of trying to anglicize French-Canadian youth by ceasing to teach French, and not allowing students to speak it, in parochial schools. Since 1895 there has been at least one Catholic school in Central Falls. By 1908, there were three: St. Matthew's, Holy Trinity, and Notre Dame. In 1995, these three schools were combined to create St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Academy, which is in the St. Matthew's building on Dexter Street. The Notre Dame church is now the home of the non- denominational Universal Church.

Cross Broad Street and walk down Sacred Heart Avenue. Continue walking to the Chocolateville Overlook park. Note that after you cross High Street, Sacred Heart Avenue is named Charles Street.

Chocolate Mill Overlook Park, corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Charles Street It was near this site, in around 1750, that Benjamin Smith built his snuff mill and dug a trench so water from the river could power it. Most of the land in the vicinity originally belonged to members of the Jenks family, from whom Charles Keene bought ten acres in 1780. Charles engaged Sylvanus Brown of Pawtucket to build a dam across the river, erected a building, and began the manufacture of scythes and other tools. Sylvanus Brown would later help mechanical engineer Samuel Slater. Part of Keene’s building, which stood here on the southwest corner of Mill Street (now Roosevelt Avenue) and Charles Street, was subsequently occupied by a man named William Wheat who made chocolate. The mill was known as the Chocolate Mill until 1807 when it was converted again to a cotton spinning mill under the ownership of Elisha Waterman, Rufus Waterman, Benjamin Walcott, and Stephen Jenks. They named the new enterprise the Smithfield Manufacturing Company. During an 1824 mill dedication celebration, Captain Stephen Jenks announced that he thought the village should take the name of Central Falls (for the falls on the river).

Cross the rotary to Roosevelt Avenue and walk toward Central Street.

Mill district on Roosevelt Avenue The six mills from north to south along Roosevelt Avenue are the Kennedy-Stafford Mill Complex (1825/1860s), the Pawtucket Thread Company (1825), the Central Falls Woolen Mill (1870), the Bryan Marsh mill (c. 1910), the Pawtucket Hair Cloth Mill (1864), and the Royal Weaving Mill (1897). These mills (together with Valley Falls) represent the industrial era and economic prosperity of Central Falls. Before any of them were built, six water privileges were divided in 1823 when the Central Falls Mill Owners Association was incorporated. Apportionment of water rights assured the orderly (and increasingly intensive) use of water power at this site throughout the 19th century. In the 1860s the trenches were renovated to increase power to these riverfront mills.

Kennedy Stafford Mill was built by John Kennedy in 1825 to manufacture cotton. John partnered with William Almy and Smith Brown, who had been partners of Samuel Slater. The Stafford Manufacturing Company continued producing cotton here until the 20th century. This building is now one of the oldest buildings in the city and occupies the site where industry began in Central Falls. The end tower was originally capped by a belfry.

Pawtucket Thread Manufacturing Company is a rubble stone building constructed in 1825. The company was formed by Jabez Ingraham and Uriah Benedict to manufacture thread and yarn. The lower level was rented to a textile machinery firm. Eventually, the building was sold to Rufus Stafford (proprietor of the Stafford Manufacturing Company). Central Falls Woolen Mill was incorporated in 1870, but four years before that, in 1866, the company’s proprietors (Phetteplace and Seagraves) purchased this building from the Fales & Jenks machinery factory and started producing fabric. The building was later (in 1894) purchased by Frederick Farwell from Vermont. Farwell used a 300hp Harris-Corliss steam engine to supplement power from the canal, which ran underneath the building. In the early 20th century the Bryan Marsh mill was constructed across its facade and the building was used to make glass products.

Bryan Marsh Mill is the newest building in the district, having been built around 1910, and was the site of the introduction of glass manufacturing in Central Falls. Bryan Marsh’s parent company was General Electric. This building was later owned by the Corning Glass Company and by the early 1990s was the city’s largest employer.

Pawtucket Hair Cloth Company was designed by William R. Walker in 1864. The company had been operating for about 8 years before constructing this building, but without great success. In 1861 they acquired Isaac Lindsley’s patents for weaving haircloth and then had a near monopoly on manufacturing the fabric, which was used for furniture coverings. Much of the raw fiber was imported from the Russian horse markets.

Royal Weaving was built in 1897 to manufacture silk. Joseph Ott, the company’s founder, was born in Germany and came to America when he was 23 to escape military duty. He worked for the Slater Cotton Company and after perfecting his own silk loom, he left to start his firm in Central Falls, with the assistance of Darius Goff and Daniel Littlefield (President of the Pawtucket Hair Cloth Co.). Ott eventually moved his company to the Darlington neighborhood where the building still stands across the street from the Oak Grove Cemetery entrance.

Turn right on Central Street and walk to the corner of High Street.

David Fales House, 476 High Street David Gilmore Fales was born in Attleboro in 1806. His father was a farmer and David followed that path until the age of 18. He then came to Central Falls and learned the machinist's trade in the shop of David Jenks & Co. Fales did very well and in 1830 he began manufacturing cotton mill machinery with Alvin Jenks (his brother-in-law). Fales & Jenks stayed in Central Falls until 1866, then moved to Pawtucket. They made spinning frames for nearby mills such as Greene & Daniels and the Conant Thread Company.

The Fales house was built in 1858 and remodeled in 1867 by Providence architect Clifton Hall, who added the mansard roof. A major fire gutted this house in the 1960s and only the exterior retains original architectural elements. This neighborhood has been the focus of urban renewal efforts in Central Falls, and several 19th century buildings were demolished. Only the Fales House and a much-altered commercial block on the opposite corner remain.

Turn left on High Street and walk to the St. Joseph’s Church.

St. Joseph’s, 391 High Street Polish immigrants began to arrive in Central Falls around 1895 and settled the “Polish Village” in the southeastern corner of the city, which was at that time one of the more affluent and desirable residential neighborhoods. A focal point of this neighborhood was St. Joseph’s Church, built in 1919. Festivals and other events, such as the celebration of General Pulaski’s birthday, continue to unite the Polish community and the St. Joseph’s congregation, though many have moved to neighboring towns.

The Congregational Church is just across the street at the corner of Jenks Street.

Central Falls Congregational Church, 376 High Street This Queen Anne style church was the focus of one of the oldest neighborhoods in Central Falls. It was constructed by an affluent congregation, established in 1820, which included many of the city’s manufacturers, businessmen, and professionals. The parish outgrew their first building and replaced it with this one in 1883. As the immigrant population increased and Catholic churches became predominant, the Congregational church population gradually declined and in 1973 this building was sold. It is now owned by St. Joseph’s (across the street) and used as a parish center.

Continue walking on Jenks Street. After you cross over the railroad tracks, turn right on Railroad Street and then left on Cross Street. Benjamin Greene House, 85 Cross Street This Second Empire house was designed by Providence architect Clifton A. Hall and built in 1868 by the Wheeler & Marchant carpentry firm. It is one of a few “high-style” mid-19th century houses in Central Falls. The house remains almost as it was built, lacking only the belvedere which once topped the roof. The original cast iron fence remains. At the age of eight Benjamin Greene started working in the Crompton Mills in Warwick. In 1824, at the age of seventeen, he came to Central Falls to make thread for Walker & Allen and from 1825-1840 was the overseer of that mill.

In 1840, Benjamin F. Greene and four other individuals established a mill in Central Falls. They started to spin coarse cotton yarns in a small mill of 600 spindles. In 1845 Mr. Greene sold his interests and moved to Mapleville (Burrillville), RI and started his own mill. The business continued to grow, and in 1850, needing larger facilities, moved to Shannock (Richmond), RI. At that time, Horace G. Daniels was employed as the company’s superintendent. Daniels observed that Greene was paying others to wind the yarn on spools and suggested that Greene wind his own cotton and put it on the market himself. Business increased thereafter, and in 1855 the mill moved back to Central Falls where a much larger plant was leased for ten years (the Pawtucket Haircloth Building on Roosevelt Avenue). It was then that Mr. Daniels invented a machine for polishing thread. Soon afterward, their "Ivory Finish Spool Cotton" became a household item and the company earned a nationwide reputation. In 1860 construction began on the new Central Avenue building in Pawtucket, and the business was incorporated in 1876 as the Greene & Daniels Manufacturing Company. Mr. Daniels died in 1876, and then Mr. Greene in 1887. In 1912 the business was reorganized as the Greene & Daniels Company Inc., but it ceased operations just one year later. In 1987, the vacant and deteriorating buildings were converted into condominium units.

Walk back to Railroad Street and turn right. Continue to the CVS parking lot and view the old train station.

Pawtucket-CF train station, 9 Railroad Street This station was built in 1916 by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad as a replacement for two separate stations in both Pawtucket and Central Falls. In 1959, the station building fell into disrepair and was closed. Passengers then had to access the platforms using stairways from Barton Street. The station remained in use until 1981. The building is now privately owned.

Before this station was built, there was a local horse-drawn streetcar through Central Falls along Broad Street. This amenity made it unnecessary to live within walking distance of one’s workplace and residential developments expanded to the suburbs. Turn left on Clay Street and cross Broad Street - continue walking until you reach the Moies House (#69). It will be the first house on the right.

Moies House 69 Clay Street This house was built around 1890 and was the home of Thomas Moies, a cotton manufacturer from Northampton, MA. After Thomas died, his son Charles P. Moies lived in the house. Charles Parmenter Moies was born here and attended the public schools. He left in 1862 to serve in the Civil War (at just 17 years old), then returned and pursued a business course at Scholfield's Commercial College in Providence. He was employed in the freight office of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad but came back to Central Falls after less than a year. He worked as a clerk and assistant to his father who was then treasurer of the Pawtucket Institution for Savings. Charles succeeded his father in many areas and became an active and prominent citizen. He was elected as treasurer of the Central Falls fire district. He held this position for fourteen years, until the district was abolished and Central Falls was organized as a city. Moies was then chosen as the new city’s first mayor. Mayor Moies died here in his home in 1910 and is buried in the Moshassuck Cemetery.

Continue on Clay Street to #88. It is on the left at the corner of Hawes Street.

Henry A. Stearns House 88 Clay Street This house was built around 1868. Henry Augustus Stearns was the vice-president and general manager of the Union Wadding Company. After attending Andover Academy, Henry moved to Cincinnati, OH in 1846 and started a career in the manufacture of cotton wadding. In 1861 he settled in Pawtucket and became connected with Darius Goff, a very successful textile manufacturer. Goff’s Union Wadding Company was incorporated in 1870 (in Pawtucket) and grew to become the largest cotton batting factory in the country at that time. Stearns chaired the committee that introduced water supply in Central Falls and he served as the state’s lieutenant governor for one year (1891-1892). Henry’s Central Falls home is said to have contained one of the finest private libraries in the state.

Continue one block on Clay Street to #104, on the left at the corner of Olive Street..

Samuel Conant House, 104 Clay Street This house was built in 1895 for Samuel Conant, president of a Pawtucket printing firm. The house is one of the city's finest examples of the colonial revival style. Samuel was the son of Hezekiah Conant, proprietor of the Conant Thread mill.

The Conant Thread/Coats & Clark Mill complex occupies 50 acres near the Central Falls city line. In 1868, Hezekiah Conant founded his thread making operation in Pawtucket. After traveling to Scotland to learn new techniques, he partnered with the Scottish Company J & P Coats. Conant’s company became an internationally-known source for cotton thread and was for many years Pawtucket's largest employer. By 1917 it had over 2,500 employees; during the 1940s there were more than 4,000. The post-war years were difficult for the company. It went through a series of mergers and became known as Coats and Clark, but production gradually declined. By 1964 operations had ceased and in 1977 a brick office and stables were demolished. The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. ______Other sites in Central Falls:

Pierce Park and Riverwalk, High Street near the river In March 1676, the garrison of nearly 70 soldiers from of Rehoboth, MA, led by Captain Michael Pierce, was ambushed and killed by Chief Canonchet’s forces on the banks of the Blackstone River during King Philip’s War. In 1907 a memorial was dedicated near the site. A bronze tablet was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company and was fastened to a boulder at the corner of High and Blackstone Streets. The 1907 marker is now gone, but it was replaced by a 1992 bronze plaque on the same corner, in front of Macomber Stadium.

St. Matthew's, 1030 Dexter Street The St. Matthew’s parish formed in 1906 when the French Canadian population was expanding to the western section of Central Falls. Monsignor Joseph Laliberte led the parish for their first 46 years (he had earlier served as the vicar of St. Ann’s in Woonsocket). Walter Fontaine, a prolific church architect, had designed St. Ann’s in 1914 and was hired to design the church building, which was completed in 1929. It is built of Weymouth granite and trimmed with limestone, and many of the lavish decorations are of fine marble. The church is now the home of the Holy Spirit parish in Central Falls.

Moshassuck Cemetery, 978 Lonsdale Avenue The Moshassuck Cemetery is the only cemetery in Central Falls, and a portion of it is in the town of Lincoln. The cemetery contains the graves of many prominent citizens of Central Falls, Lincoln, and Pawtucket. On Labor Day in 1934, thousands of factory workers around the country went on strike to protest poor conditions and labor practices. The demonstrators in Central Falls were met with police and military force and four workers were killed during the fighting, some of which occurred in the Moshassuck Cemetery. There is a now memorial to the Saylesville Massacre in the cemetery.

Holy Trinity, 134 Fuller Avenue The Holy Trinity Church parish was formed in 1888 and a year later they built a red brick Gothic Revival style church designed by James Murphy. The church campus eventually included a rectory (1893), convent (1905), school (1905), and a parish house (1925). The complex served as the institutional center for the Irish Catholic community in the 19th and 20th centuries. The church and complex were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, but have since been demolished. Only the parish house remains at 325 Cowden Street, and it is now occupied by the Segue Institute for Learning.

Valley Falls Company Mill, 1485 High Street At the beginning of the 18th century, the Valley Falls area was owned by Jenks family members. In 1812 Abraham, Isaac and David Wilkinson purchased sixteen acres of land including the water privilege at Valley Falls and a right of way through the Joseph Jenks estate to Central Falls. This right of way was developed by Isaac Wilkinson as the Valley Falls Turnpike, and would later be named Broad Street.

The Wilkinson brothers built a stone mill about 1820, on the Smithfield (Central Falls had not yet been established) side of the river. The Wilkinsons were hit hard by the 1829 economic crash and could no longer afford to run their mills.

In 1839, Oliver Chace, who had worked as a carpenter for Samuel Slater, purchased the former Wilkinson mills and established the Valley Falls Company. His sons later took over the company and built mills on both sides of the river - - the opposite side of the river is in the town of Cumberland. This precipitated the growth of a substantial village in this area.

In 1930, the mill operations moved elsewhere and the Valley Falls plant was closed. The mills on the Cumberland side were demolished in 1934. The site remained vacant until 1991 when the Town of Cumberland and the Blackstone Valley National Heritage Corridor transformed the site into an historic park.

The 1855 brick mill in Central Falls remains and in 1979 was converted to a housing complex.

Elizabeth Buffum Chace was the daughter-in-law of Oliver Chace. She was born in 1806 in Smithfield to Quaker parents Arnold Buffum and Rebecca Gould. In 1828 she married Samuel B. Chace, also a Quaker. It was after her marriage to Samuel that Elizabeth began to influence the anti-slavery movement. They used their home in Valley Falls to help runaway slaves get to Canada. Elizabeth met frequently with William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and William Wells Brown, hosting them in her home. In her later life, Elizabeth continued to advocate for the political rights for women, and for prison and workplace reform. She died in 1899 at age 93 and is buried in the Swan Point Cemetery in Providence.

Samuel's and Elizabeth's children became prominent citizens in the community. Their son, Arnold Buffum Chace, became the Chancellor of Brown University. Their daughter, Lillie Buffum Chace Wyman, became an author publishing several books and writing regularly for such magazines as The Atlantic Monthly.

St. George’s Episcopal, 12 Clinton Street This stone church was built in 1922. The Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island was founded in 1790 by representatives of the four charter churches, King's Church in Providence (1722), Trinity Church in Newport (1698), St. Paul's in Narragansett (1707), and St. Michael's in Bristol (1720). In the first part of the 20th century, under the leadership of Bishop William McVickar, the Episcopal Church in Rhode Island focused on urban ministry and social concerns. The Episcopal parishes in Pawtucket are: St. Luke's, Church of the Advent, Good Shepherd, and St. Paul's. St. George’s is the only one in Central Falls.

Central Street School, 379 Central Street This school building was constructed in 1881. It was one of four schools built in Central Falls between 1875-1886 when industrialization and immigration required the district to expand its resources.

Adams Library, 205 Central Street In 1882 the state permitted the Central Falls Fire District to form a free library association open to all local citizens; it was in the firehouse on Cross Street. Joseph W. Freeman was the first librarian. In 1900 Stephen L. Adams, a member of the school committee, died and left a bequest to provide for the construction and maintenance of a library building. The building was designed by the Boston architectural firm of McLean and Wright. Work began in 1908 and in 1910 the library was open to the public. Today the facility is still owned and maintained by the Adams Memorial Trust.

______Sources:

1. Addresses and Poems in Commemoration of the Captain Michael Pierce Fight, Thomas W. Bicknell, 1908 2. Annual School Report, Central Falls, 1906 and 1907 3. Broad Street Regeneration Initiative Action Plan, Maguire Group, November 2008 4. http://centralfallsfire.com/history/ 5. Wikipedia 6. A City For All People: Central Falls Walking Tour, Blackstone Valley Heritage Corridor 7. Historic Resources of Central Falls, National Register of Historic Place Inventory Form, 1978 8. http://www.chocolatemilloverlook.com/ 9. http://www.centralfallsri.us/history 10. An illustrated history of Pawtucket, Central Falls, and vicinity : a narrative of the growth and evolution of the community, by Grieve, Robert, Pawtucket Gazette and Chronicle, 1897 11. Industries and Wealth of the Principal Points in Rhode Island, A.F. Parsons Publishing Company, 1892 12. The Jews of Pawtucket and Central Falls Part 1, Eleanor F. Horvitz, Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes, Vol. 9, No. 2, November 1984 13. South Central Falls Historic District, National Register of Historic Places nomination form, 1991 14. Representative Men and Old Families of Rhode Island. J.H. Beers & Company. 1908 15. http://www.rifuture.org/labor-day-and-the-saylesville-massacre/ 16. http://www.centralfallsri.us/historic_library

This tour was developed and written by Barbara Zdravesky for the Preservation Society of Pawtucket, 2018.