The Lost Mill Towns of South County #2: 2019 Couse at URI's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

As I put together the presentation for "Lost Mill Towns of South County" for HistoryCamp 2018, I decided to change the organization listed in my pre-HistoryCamp post. After an abstract of the project (see below) and an intro slide "Early Mills Seats and Colonial-era South County," I spent about 15-20 minutes just explaining the raison d'être of colonial-era mills, how they were built, how they were sited, and the variety of colonial-era industries they supported. Next was an overview of the creation of the towns of South County, and then a town-by-town synopsis of the colonial-era mills in each. Then I transitioned to a brief overview of the the Industrial Revolution and how the colonial-era mill seats were transformed by textile manufacturing. Finally I dove into the main topic, a look at actual mills of South County as they stand today -- some thriving, some abandoned and awaiting reoccupation or renovation, others in ruins or completely vanished from the landscape.

Photo credit: Inara Gardner

After my presentation at HistoryCamp 2018, the project stalled for a while. I was still unsure how to organize the main book chapters -- by village? By town? By river? By periods of history? Each had its strengths and drawbacks, though I was pretty sure that "by town" was not going to work given that so many mill villages straddled town boundaries. Follow the course of the Pawcatuck River on this 1870 map of Richmond (top) and Charlestown (bottom). Both industrial villages of Carolina and Shannock have houses and/or mills on the both sides of the river. 

This is because in the colonial period, after Charlestown was founded in 1738, farmers living north of the Pawcatuck River had to cross it to get to town meetings at the General Stanton Inn in the southern end of town. In the winter this was arduous and even dangerous, so the folks north of the river petitioned the General Assembly to form a new town north of the Pawcatuck in 1747, Richmond. While there was a sawmill and gristmill on the upper falls in Shannock as early as the 1730s, there were no mills or Carolina until after the towns were divided when a gristmill was in built in 1802. But in the age of the mill towns, what had divided the towns -- the river -- brought them back together as textile mills and houses sprawled into both Charlestown and Richmond. 

At any rate, until I settled on how to organize the book chapters, I was at an impasse. To force myself to get back on track I decided to offer a three-class course on the Lost Mill Towns at OLLI. This I felt would force to me to figure out how I was going to organize the project. As you can see from my pre-HistoryCamp post, I had an outline and a decent list of places to write about that I changed for the actual presentation, but I was having serious doubts that the organization would work in a book format. By the time I finished teaching the three classes, I had a much better idea of how to organize the book.

Below is the abstract and basic outline for those three classes. Stay tuned for a reflection on how they went in a future post.

The Lost Mill Towns of South County

Mills are essential elements of the New England’s historical landscape. The birth of the Industrial Revolution at Slater’s Mill and the rapid industrialization and urbanization along the state’s larger rivers is a well-known story. But in southern Rhode Island, the rivers were smaller, and industrialization did not support the growth of large urban centers. To this day, most of Washington County’s 563 square miles are still characteristically rural. However the Wood, Pawcatuck, Saugatucket and other local rivers supported a robust industrial economy that emerged from pre-industrial mill seats and existed hand-in-hand with local farms well into the twentieth century. Some mills sites been lost to the sands of time while other mills have persevered or been re-purposed. This course traces that history, from the arrival of first English settlers in the 1600's, into the 21st century. 

Class 1: Wednesday April 24, 2019

A. Colonial mills and the pre-industrial economy

B. Mills as central places

C. The formation of South County's towns, 1669-1757

Class 2: Wednesday May 8, 2019

A. The Industrial Revolution and textile mills

B. The Rise and Fall of South County's Textile Economy

C. Lost Mill Villages of South County (Part 1)

Class 3: Wednesday May 8, 2019

A. The Lost Mill Villages of South County, Part 2 - The "Not-So-Lost" Mill Towns

B. The 21st Century Mill: Communities, Community Building and Businesses 

Map images: Atlas of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. D. G. Beers & Co., Philadelphia, 1870.  https://wardmapsgifts.com/collections/atlas-of-rhode-island-1870