Lost Mill Towns of West Greenwich, Rhode Island

[This post originally appeared in the August 2021 edition of The Hinterlander, the monthly newsletter of the Western Rhode Island Civic Historical Society]

This article for The Hinterlander written in connection with the “Lost Mill Towns” project, an effort to identify and describe the so-called “mill towns” that once dotted the western Rhode Island countryside. This month the focus in on West Greenwich, one of least industrialized and perhaps the most rural and remote town in Rhode Island

West Greenwich, like Exeter, was part of the so-called “Vacant Lands” which were surveyed by the General Assembly in 1707. According to the Rhode Island Historic Preservation and Heritage Commission’s 1978 study of West Greenwich, the entire town was conveyed in 1709 “to thirteen individuals for $1100 [in what] appears to have been something of a political payoff. The thirteen men--the new proprietors ‘went into partnership with forty-six others and the land was divided up, with the principals receiving approximately one thousand acres’ each.”

These earliest English settlers in West Greenwich discovered that the region was not well-suited for agriculture. The town is hilly and the soil full of rocks, the by-product of glacial deposits left behind during the Ice Age. Most of the land will only support subsistence-level agriculture. But two resources that could be exploited were the town’s vast forests and waterpower. With numerous streams that fed into the Big River, Flat River and Wood River, the town had an abundance of sites for suitable for mill seats. Colonial-era settlers built a number of sawmills and the 1978 RIHPHC study indicates the town’s “wood-products included shingles, clapboards, floorboards and barrel staves and ends.” 

In the early nineteenth century, Rhode Island began to experience a boom in textile manufacturing. West Greenwich had numerous sites available for mill seats, but because of the town’s isolation from the rest of the state and high transportation costs, according the 1978 study, “West Greenwich never fully utilized the industrial potential of its waterways.” The Providence & Pawcatuck Turnpike Company began building the New London Turnpike in 1816. The turnpike entered West Greenwich at its northeast corner and passed through the easternmost section of the town on its way to Exeter and points south. Ultimately, the pike was not financially successful. While the road did attract a number of seedy taverns in a region known as “Hell’s Half Acre,” it did not encourage West Greenwich’s potential textile industry. When the main railroad route through the state was surveyed in the early 1830s, it completely bypassed the hilly terrain of West Greenwich in favor of a nearly level route through East Greenwich that then passed through South County. Eventually railroad spurs would be built in Coventry through the village of Greene to the north, and another spur to the village of Locustville on the border of Richmond and Hopkinton to the south, but no railway was ever constructed to connect West Greenwich directly to outside markets.

Mill village of Nooseneck, West Greenwich RI. Walling, 1855

Hence West Greenwich sawmills continued to thrive in lieu of converting to textile manufacturing. According to the state’s 1978 preservation study, during the heyday of small mill towns in Rhode Island, “seasonal saw and shingle mills persisted [in West Greenwich] as an alternative…to farming [and s]everal widely separated hamlets grew up around these industrial activities in Liberty…Robin Hollow…and Nooseneck.” Of these three communities only Nooseneck (so-named, according to J.R. Cole, for the “narrow neck lying between two streams which unite” before flowing into the Pawtuxet River) succeeded long-term in “fostering the growth of’ a village with a settled population.” The earliest mill at Nooseneck was built in 1800, followed by larger stone and wooden mill buildings for, according to the 1978 survey, the “manufacturing cotton yarn, wool and later braided sash cord, warp and twine.” From the 1830s to the 1860s one David Hopkins became the village’s leading manufacturer. Hopkins owned several mills and a number of the houses in the village. Of these, only the Hopkins Mill, built circa 1867, was the only the only West Greenwich mill building in that survived into modern times. Despite its clear historic importance, and being listed in the National Register of Historic Places, Hopkins Mill was demolished in 1978 to make way for the Big River Reservoir project.

Hopkins Mill, Nooseneck village. Photo credit: RIHPHC survey, 1978

The only other successful manufacturing concern described by the 1978 state survey was “prompted by the easy access to the [rail] station at Greene” in Coventry. From 1866 to 1883 an acetic acid factory, operated on the aptly named Acid Factory Brook, and

“shipped out…barrels or "hogs-heads" by horse or ox-teams to West Greenwich Centre 

then, via Sand Hill Road, through Hopkins Hollow to Greene in Coventry. Here it was 

loaded onto freight cars of the Hartford, Providence and Fishkill Railroad, bound for the 

B. B. R. Knight Mills in the Pawtuxet River Valley… Acetic acid was used in the 

manufacture of dyes for calico production. The only ingredients needed were hardwoods 

and water. The hardwoods, predominantly oak and ash, were distilled in large airtight 

ovens; a pipe carried the vapors, which were then cooled [and] condensed.”

An examination of the historical maps of West Greenwich provides us with some more details about West Greenwich lost mill towns. Stevens 1831 map labels one Kittle’s Mill at Hopkins Hill, and Nichols Mill along what is today Robin Hollow Road northwest of Spencer Four Corners. In the western end of town, were three more mills. Madison’s Mill, north and west of Racoon Hill, Libertie Mill due east of Wickaboxet Pond and Hazard’s Mill west of the pond not far from the Connecticut line on what is today probably Bailey Pond Road. 

On Henry Francis Walling’s 1855 map of Rhode Island, Hazard’s Mill is labeled as “Saw Mill.” Libertie Mill is labeled “Libertie Factory” on Walling’s map and nearby the property of one J. Cottrell lies Cottrell’s Mill. Two Hopkin’s Mills are extant, one at Nooseneck and another on Racoon Brook east of Racoon Hill. East of Nooseneck Hill is a millseat labeled Congdon’s Mill in about the same location as Nichol’s Mill on the 1831 map. 

On D.G. Beers 1870 map, Congdon’s mill is labeled Congdon & Tarbox Mill. The village of Nooseneck has a “Cotton Mill,” a “Hollow Mill” and one “S. Mill,” or saw mill. Southwest of West Greenwich Centre was another saw mill. Another saw mill was located on Frye Pond, and yet another in the southwest corner of town on Escoheag Hill. An Acid Works and saw mill were located on the Wood River and while on or near the Flat River were a series of what appear to be four businesses in close proximity: B.P.C. Co., another acid works, B.P Clapp & Co., and another also labeled B.P.C. Co. 

On Everts & Richards 1895 map the mill village of Nooseneck, with its concentration of buildings, was clearly the most built-up area of the town. However, most of the previously-labeled businesses were gone. The 1978 RIHPHC survey reports: 

According to the 1890 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Industrial Statistics, West 

Greenwich was the poorest and most desolate town in the state. The population in 1890 

was less than half of what it was a century earlier. Farms were being consistently 

abandoned; sixty-five formerly cultivated farms, covering more than 8825 acres equal to 

about one quarter of the town’s total land area and containing fifty-four buildings were 

abandoned. Most of the mills had burned and the farmers were left depending entirely on 

the land for sustenance. An exodus of young people resulted--leaving the land for the

manufacturing villages and towns…A prolonged era of reforestation ensued. 

By 1895, the population density. was the’ lowest in the state--14.1 persons per square 

mile. The 1895 Everts and Richards map of West Greenwich still gives property-owners’ 

names--hut now indicates whether or not the property is deserted as well. The area 

hardest hit was the more isolated western section; more than half the farmsteads in 

Escoheag are labeled "deserted” …

West Greenwich had come full circle from its beginnings as part of the “Vacant Lands.” Less than two centuries later, most of its mill towns were also vacant.

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Bibliography

Atlas of Southern Rhode Island 1895. Everts & Richards, Philadelphia, 1895.

Atlas of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. D. G. Beers & Co., Philadelphia,

1870.

Big River Reservoir Water Resources Development Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 5,

United States. Army. Corps of Engineers, 1982. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Big_River_Reservoir_Water_Resources_Deve/gDk0AQAAMAAJ

Cole, J. R., History of Washington and Kent Counties, W. W. Preston & Company, New York,

1889.

Stevens, James, “A topographical map of the state of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations,

surveyed trigonometrically and in detail by James Stevens, topographer and civil engineer, Newport, R.I. 1831” Newport, Rhode Island, 1832.

Tiner Jason, "Rhode Island Turnpike Era: 1794–1830". History 364 Student Projects, Bryant

            University Fall 2001 (retrieved from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine).

Walling, Henry Francis, “Map of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations; from

            surveys" L.H. Bradford & Co.'s Lith., Boston, Massachusetts, 1855

West Greenwich, Preliminary Survey Report. Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage

Commission, Providence, 1978.