Personally Pawtucket Tour This Tour Begins in Hodgson Park, Next to the Slater Mill Historic Site. the Blackstone River The
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Personally Pawtucket Tour Rhode Island Historical Society and the Preservation Society of Pawtucket This tour begins in Hodgson Park, next to the Slater Mill Historic Site. The Blackstone River The Blackstone River is 45 miles long and runs from Worcester, MA through Pawtucket on its way to the Narragansett Bay. For the Wampanoag and Narragansett Indians in this area, the river served as a boundary between their tribal lands. This particular location on the river was a good fishing spot and a place where the river could be crossed more easily. Pawtucket gets its name from the Algonquian word for “river fall,” and what we now call Pawtucket Falls became the source of power and industry for the iron and textile factories that were built on the river’s edge. As tribal lands turned into colonial settlements, the Blackstone River continued to serve as a boundary between Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Joseph Jenks and his forge Joseph Jenks, Jr. (1632-1717) is considered to be the founder of Pawtucket. In 1671, he left Saugus, MA, came here, and built a house on the west side of the river. The area was the northern boundary of Roger Williams' settlement of Providence. At that time, William Bucklin owned the land on the Massachusetts (east) side of the river. Joseph built a dam over the top edge of the falls and his iron forging shop on the river banks, just below the falls. There was an abundant supply of timber and iron ore nearby and Joseph did well. He later built a sawmill, a carpentry shop, an iron furnace, and a foundry. However, only four years after he’d arrived, King Philip’s War began and everything that Joseph had built was set on fire and destroyed. Samuel Slater and his textile mill Samuel Slater (1768-1835) is often called the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution." American industrialists, such as Moses Brown, had been struggling in the 18th century to build a consistently working spinning machine. Moses, with his son-in-law William Almy and his cousin Smith Brown, had started a mill in Pawtucket. They wanted to manufacture cloth for sale, using water-powered spinning wheels, jennies, and frames. They acquired a 32-spindle frame "after the Arkwright pattern," but could not operate it. The Arkwright design was named for its inventor Richard Arkwright who was English, and the English prevented the mill designs from being taken out of their country. Twenty-one year-old Samuel Slater was working with the Arkwright mill design in England, but recognized that if he wanted to become a superstar in the textile industry, he would have to emigrate to America. In 1790 he wrote to Moses Brown offering his services, and Moses accepted. Samuel signed a contract to replicate the British designs. The deal provided Slater with the funds to build the water frames and necessary machinery, with a half share in the profits. In 1793, Slater and Brown opened their first factory in Pawtucket. Early Pawtucket History Pawtucket had good access to land and water transportation routes, which were necessary for bringing in raw materials and distributing finished goods. Providence harbor had not been blocked during the Revolutionary War, and that allowed the wealthy merchant class to continue making profits. This attracted financiers looking for investment opportunities. By 1817 Pawtucket had thirteen textile mills, and several machine shops. An 1829 collapse in the cotton goods market devastated Pawtucket's manufacturing businesses; recovery was slow, but eventually was boosted by the arrival of the Providence and Worcester Railroad in 1847. The Civil War kicked Pawtucket's manufacturing economy into high gear again. The town experienced a boom period until the early 20th century, but stiff competition from Southern cotton mills diminished Pawtucket's dominance of the industry. By 1910, strifes with workers over low wages and poor working conditions, combined with increasing production costs, caused many of Pawtucket’s textile mills to falter after World War I. The decline was exacerbated by the Great Depression. The Main Street Bridge was built in 1858 as the last in a series of five bridges that span the Blackstone River at this location; the first was built in 1713. It is the earliest surviving highway bridge in Rhode Island. It was widened twice in the 20th century and now carries a modern deck and road bed, hiding the original stone structure beneath. The bridge arches are footed by the outcropping of rocks that form the natural waterfall underneath. The Main Street Bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and was in 1989 dedicated as the Sri Chinmoy Peace Bridge by Pawtucket Mayor Brian Sarault. Sri Chinmoy was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher who dedicated his life to the service of humanity and was known for holding public events on peace and world harmony. Walk across Roosevelt Avenue to the Main Street entrance to the Visitor’s Center. Visitor’s Center/Peerless Building, 175 Main Street At this site stood the home of Judge William Jenks (ca. 1675-1765), son of Joseph Jenks, Jr. William’s house was demolished around 1830 when Main Street Square began to change from a residential area to a commercial district. By the early 1970s this was a vacant lot, until a Peerless department store was constructed in 1973. Peerless closed its stores in Pawtucket (and in downtown Providence) in the 1980s and this building was purchased by the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency, who, along with the City of Pawtucket agreed on a plan to renovate it as office space and a visitor center for the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. In 1995, the completed building was renamed the “Benjamin C. Chester Building,” in honor of the long-serving chairman of the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency, and in 1998, the Blackstone Valley Visitor Center officially opened. This building is home to the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council. Downtown Pawtucket The Downtown Pawtucket Historic District is approximately 14 acres. It is a compact and densely developed area with curving street patterns that were laid out well before the automobile era. Most of the buildings remaining today were built between 1871 and 1930; they are nearly all commercial buildings. Pawtucket prospered as an industrial city between the Civil War and World War I, when a true urban downtown was developed, filled with banks, insurance companies, department stores, retail and service shops, professional offices, media and communications companies, recreational facilities, and civic buildings. Beginning in 1965, as part of the Slater Urban Renewal Project, many of the existing buildings adjacent to the Blackstone River were demolished and either replaced with new large-scale commercial and multi-family residential development, or were paved over for parking lots. The 1974 "Pawtucket '76" plan aimed to celebrate the Bicentennial by extending redevelopment efforts west of the Slater Urban Renewal project area. The city government committed $1 million to clear even more properties for new construction. After the late 1970s, the focus of downtown revitalization efforts began to move away from urban renewal and toward historic preservation. Turn right onto High Street and walk to the triangle just before the Burns Library Annex. The First Baptist Church marker is near the ground on the left side of the street. First Baptist Church marker (corner of Summer and High Streets) Dr. David Benedict was born in Norwalk, CT. When he was fourteen he apprenticed as a shoemaker and at twenty-one went to New York for one year to practice that trade. Wanting a classical education, he enrolled at a school in Mount Pleasant, New York and after two years, came to Rhode Island to complete his studies at Brown University. In that same year (1804) he received a license to preach in the Stratfield Church, near Bridgeport, CT. During his two years at Brown he was the assistant pastor for the First Baptist Church in Pawtucket. He was formally ordained as a Baptist minister in 1805, and graduated from Brown in 1806. At that time, Pawtucket’s Baptist church offered him the pastorate, which he accepted and held for twenty-five years, until 1828 when the Anti-Masonic movement was formed. Anti-Masons were opponents of Freemasonry, believing it was a corrupt and elitist secret society that was ruling the country in defiance of republican principles. Many people thought the Masonic organization and its members, especially those involved in government, were corrupt. Dr. Benedict was a mason and perhaps thought it best to remove himself from a position of authority. He was a prolific author and in 1860 published his “Fifty Years Among the Baptists,” and thereafter spent his time writing about the history of Pawtucket. Benedict served as a trustee of Brown University for fifty-eight years and was granted an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Shurtleff College in 1851. Dr. Benedict is buried in the Mineral Spring Cemetery. Old Post Office, 1 Summer Street This building was designed by the architects of the U.S. Treasury to serve as Pawtucket’s post office. At the time of its completion in 1897, the building was seen as an affirmation of prosperity and progress, and was looked upon as a symbol of the city’s growing importance. Pawtucket was proud of its position as an industrial center and was eager to erect structures physically expressive of the city’s prosperity. Thomas McCoy was an active city official (and became Mayor in 1937) who took advantage of President Roosevelt’s federal funding programs and in 1933 began construction of the new post office building on Montgomery Street, and the new city hall building on Roosevelt Avenue (the former city hall was here on High Street).