From “Kentucky Jeans” to “Fruit of the Loom” to the world’s most popular soaps and cosmetics, the “lower mill” at Riverpoint has seen a lot of fame! The Greene Manufacturing Company built a small spinning mill here on the South Branch just above its junction with the North Branch in 1812, but by 1816 the company had failed.  In 1834 the company constructed a dam and a stone mill on a newly acquired water “privilege” downstream from the original mill.  A third mill was built in 1844 and enlarged in 1855 to become one of the seven largest cotton mills in the state.  Before the Civil War the primary product of the mills was a cotton twill fabric known as “Kentucky Jeans.”  Following the Civil War the market collapsed and the company suffered financial losses. In 1884-1885, the property was purchased by the Knight Company, one of the world’s leading cotton manufacturers of the famous "Fruit of the Loom" brand. The Knights owned the mill until 1931 when it was bought by its present owners, the Original Bradford Soap Works. This firm, founded in Providence in 1876 by English immigrants James Rodgers and William Murgatroyd, produced soaps for the textile industry. With the collapse of the Rhode Island textile industry in the mid-2Oth century, Original Bradford diversified by producing chemical and cosmetic soaps.  Today they produce products for such global brands as Dove, Paul Mitchell, Clinique, Johnsons Baby, Olay, Palmers, Neutrogena, Cetaphil and others.

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This 25-acre parcel and 12-building campus along the Woonasquatucket River was once home to one of Providence’s premier companies, Brown and Sharpe.

In 1833 David Brown and his son opened a shop in Providence for the making and repair of watches and clocks and other precision mechanical work. Lucien Sharpe joined the business as an apprentice in 1848 and became a full partner in 1853. While Brown concentrated on mechanical problems, Sharpe provided business acumen. Together they made Brown and Sharpe into a nationally recognized machine tool producer.

Brown and Sharpe’s products were the day-to-day tools of machinists and allowed them to produce the individual parts of complex manufacturing machines. Machinists, and the products they make, constitute the foundation of precision manufacturing.

The 1850s marked the beginning of the company’s spectacular rise. Brown devoted his career to raising the standard of accuracy in machine shop operations: he built an automatic linear dividing engine so fundamentally correct in design and workmanship that it has remained in continuous service. His pocket vernier caliper (a linear measuring instrument) of 1851 has been called "the first practical tool for exact measurement which could be sold in any country at a price within the reach of the ordinary machinist." In 1861, in perhaps his most important contribution, Brown invented the modern universal milling machine for cutting spirals. This machine helped advance mass production of cheap, interchangeable, and standard, parts.

After Brown's death in 1876, Oscar J. Beale became the company's genius in the field of mechanical design. He developed a measuring machine that enabled the company to make and sell its gauges with a guarantee of accuracy to within one ten-thousandth of an inch. In 1880, he invented an automatic screw machine.

Brown and Sharpe’s success depended on and helped to advance the mechanization of daily life in the 19th century. The machine tools the company produced proved instrumental to countless automotive, aeronautic, commercial, and domestic products. Brown and Sharpe's skilled workforce contributed to the development of the automobile and aviation industries and to the emergence of the United States as a global leader in manufacturing.

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This pond and its link to the West Branch of the Westport River are the primary reasons for Adamsville's existence. These natural resources created an ideal spot for both a gristmill and a sawmill. Early settlers were quick to realize the area’s potential and dammed the pond to maximize its waterpower. Mills were essential to survival and villages grew up around them. Colonists needed their grain ground into meal and lumber to build their homes.

Over the years the pond has also provided the community with both the ice to preserve their food before the advent of refrigerators and a wintertime recreation area perfect for skating. Harvesting pond ice was big business from the 1800s to mid-1900s, although skaters were very unhappy when ice harvesting interrupted their wintertime fun on the pond. Many village men and boys would take part in ice harvesting to earn extra money. They would store the ice in numerous ice houses around the pond, where, packed in layers of straw, it would last all summer. The ice was moved to the ice houses on the far side of the road via a chute that blocked traffic. Vehicles could be detoured along an old road in back of the ice houses (now an office building) called “Ice Avenue,” and parts of this road are still visible today.

A recent pond clean-up led by owner Ralph Guild was a major two-state project that returned herring to the pond and preserved wildlife habitats.

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Adamsville’s first mill was established by Philip Taber prior to 1700. Most early mills in the Little Compton area were wind-powered, but in order to saw wood, it was necessary to have water power. The Adamsville mill pond provided power for both a sawmill and a gristmill. The present gristmill dates from the mid-nineteenth century, and it originally used a horizontal water wheel. After a hurricane damaged the original water-powered works, the remnants of a 1946 Cains Mayonnaise truck powered the mill for many years. Today an electric motor turns its historic mill stone and still grinds the finest jonnycake meal.

Corn meal pancakes, known as "jonnycakes," have been a staple of the New England diet ever since English settlers discovered that wheat and other grains did not grow well in Little Compton, but corn, central to the local Native American diet, did. They remained a common everyday food well into the twentieth century, frequently eaten with thick cream skimmed from raw milk. Jonnycakes are now a popular local breakfast food. Prepared "thick" in other areas of Rhode Island, Little Compton jonnycakes are preferred "thin."

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