Historic Slatersville

Slatersville, a village along the Branch River in the town of North Smithfield, RI, was founded by Samuel and John Slater in partnership with the Almy and Brown firm.

At first glance, the village of Slatersville, in the town of North Smithfield, Rhode Island epitomizes the quintessence of a New England Village -- crisp white houses and matching picket fences neatly aligned along quiet streets that merge with the town common and Congregational Church. But looks can be deceiving. In reality, Slatersville is recognized as America's first planned industrial village, and its true heart is not the quaint common, but the massive stone mill along the river. Last year, North Smithfield residents celebrated with pride the 200th Anniversary of the opening of the Slater Mill and the establishment of Slatersville in July 1807.

But, there was history here long before the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The area we know as Slatersville was, in the early 1800s, part of the town of Smithfield, and before that, in the 1600s, a part of the original "Providence Plantations". Like a fine wine, history here has been aging gracefully. It has been said that only those who truly honor the past, can appreciate the present and celebrate the future. Certainly there is much to honor here.

Established as a part of Providence in 1636, it is believed the town was named for John Smith "the miller" who came to the area with Roger Williams in the original party of six, renegades from the Puritan religious establishment in Massachusetts. The first residents of the town followed the example of their leader in Providence and established good relations with the native Wampanoag's, who used the area for hunting and fishing. There's little doubt the numerous streams, ponds and waterways intersecting the landscape were attractive reasons to settle nearby.

Those early settlers were, for the most part, members of the Society of Friends or "Quakers" as they were known. They were persecuted unmercifully in Massachusetts but found welcome in the religious freedom of Williams' Rhode Island. Quakers were among the first to brave the wilderness of Smithfield, establish their churches and subsistence farms and live out their faith in peace with their neighbors and in relative obscurity. Quakers were so sensitive to the issue of pride, that many refused to even mark their graves or record their history, leaving historians amiss and recollections mysterious. Their beliefs were viewed as a reaction against the Puritan idea of a "God of Wrath" and more in favor of "God as a friend" -- "I have called you friends, for everything I have heard from My Father I have made known to you." (John 15:15)

Quaker values would come to dominate early Rhode Island politics, electing many Quaker Governors and Representatives and providing a strong influence upon the social concerns of the period. Quaker influence could be seen during the debate over the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island held out adamantly for a strong Bill of Rights guaranteeing religious liberty for all and against the establishment of government sponsored religion. During the Civil War, Quakers throughout Rhode Island harbored slaves in their own homes at great personal risk and were a vital link along the "underground railway" that transported thousands of slaves from southern plantations to freedom. It is a heritage we should recall today, and cherish, forever sealed in the corridors of time.

For over 150 years, from 1635 to the dawn of the 18th century, time seems to have stood still. The life of a subsistence farmer and hunter symbolized by the serenity of a stagecoach ambling through town or a horse-drawn barge imperceptibly making its way along the canal tow-path had not yet given way to the intensity, regularity and precision found in the mills of the Industrial Revolution.

The founding of Slatersville would mark a turning point in American history. For the first time, farmer families would trade labor for wages; the transformation from farm to factory had begun. Slatersville's claim for being the "first planned industrial village in the United States" is unchallenged. It all began here.

The year was 1790, and it was a momentous time in our nation's history. Samuel Slater, a recent immigrant from England, was busy replicating from memory Richard Arkwright's cotton spinning invention, which had launched the Industrial Revolution in England in 1768.

In those years, England guarded its manufacturing technology as state secrets and vigorously sought to prevent their export. Slater, disguised as an ordinary farm boy, escaped detection and sailed to America. Along with Providence investors Smith Brown and William Almy, the trio began successfully spinning yarn by the fall of 1792. And in 1793, the firm of Slater, Brown and Almy built the first successful cotton mill in the United States on the banks of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The Smithfield Friends Meeting House, Parsonage, and Cemetery, located along 146A near the North Smithfield and Woonsocket border, is home to one of the oldest Quaker communities in the country. The original Meeting House was built in 1719, but was destroyed by fire and subsequently replaced in 1881.

Samuel Slater had a profound legacy as one of the leading early American industrialists.

He also began the American Sunday School system in his textile mills in Pawtucket, RI and married Hannah Wilkinson, who would become the first American woman to be granted a patent in 1793 through her invention of two-ply thread.

In 1803, Samuel Slater assigned his brother John the task of finding a site for a new mill. After searching throughout the region, he chose Buffum's Mills, a small settlement along the Branch River where a saw-mill, gristmill and blacksmith's shop were already in operation. They began buying up the land and water rights, and on July 4, 1807 the new stone mill was opened. It was the site of the 2nd cotton mill on the Blackstone River, and the first independently owned by the Slater's. Unlike Pawtucket, workers had to be recruited to work in the mills and there was a need for expanded housing for the new hires. This led to a uniquely structured "Mill Village". The Slaters built homes for their workers, company stores, houses of worship - even the town hall -- all within walking distance to the mill. This model came to be known as the Rhode Island System, and was duplicated all along the Blackstone River during the 1800s. The success of Slatersville proved that it was feasible to build mills outside of population centers, thus opening up the entire Blackstone Valley for industrialization. For those reasons, Slater earned the distinction as the "Father of American Manufactures" by President Jackson in the 1830s.

John Slater became the resident manager of the Slatersville mill and remained the driving force behind the village until his death in 1845. The mills as well as the village surrounding it continued to expand all through the 1800s. The Slater family continued to own Slatersville until 1900, when it was sold to James R. Hooper. Hooper sold Slatersville to Henry P. Kendall in 1915. Kendall took a personal interest in the village and initiated many improvement projects. He renovated many of the homes, made sure that they were maintained, lawns and shrubbery were planted, and he forbade the removal of any tree without his approval. Much of the traditional New England character of Slatersville is attributed to the efforts of Mr. Kendall.

Current residents still exhibit the sense of pride instilled by the Slaters and Henry Kendall. While the surrounding areas have been developed, the village core has been preserved and Main Street looks much as it did in the 1920s after Kendall's renovations. Thus, modern Slatersville is not only a mill village entering its third century, but the end result of a preservation project, lovingly carried out on a community level for eighty years.

Reproduced (with adaptation) from the North Smithfield, Rhode Island town website via the Slatersville Commemorative Guide (Navigator Publishing; Whitinsville, MA).