In 1932, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that Beacon Manufacturing Company used misleading practices to violate the rights of Native American weavers. The FTC objected to Beacon’s marketing of its popular line of “Indian blankets,” which deceived the public into believing the company’s products to be hand-made by Native Americans, rather than manufactured in textile mills in New Bedford and Swannanoa, North Carolina. In 1904, Charles Owen and his son, also named Charles, took over a defunct mill in New Bedford from Mount Pleasant Manufacturing, which failed before the building was complete, and from the original Beacon Manufacturing Company, which closed a year after its founding in 1896. The Owens installed Jacquard looms, imported from Europe, which were capable of weaving intricate, multicolor designs, enabling the company to launch its line of blankets with geometric patterns based upon Native American weaving. The younger Charles Owen was inspired by the work of Eanger Irving Course and other American artists whose paintings romanticized the Native people and crafts of the American southwest. Their art depicted Native people using traditional tools and techniques in natural settings. Part of the appeal to Owen may have been the contrast between these imagined settings and the reality of industrialization in the Northeast. Course’s paintings often included Native weaving and textiles, which formed the basis of Beacon’s designs and marketing. Beacon distinguished the different grades of its “Indian blankets” with names like Wigwam and Sachem and included illustrations of Native American weavers in its advertising. Beacon supplied retailers with cutout figures of Native weavers, designed to display blankets as if emerging from a hand loom, rather than from the mechanized looms in its mills. Weavers from the Navajo and Hopi tribes, among others, asserted their rights under the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. The FTC found that Beacon was “advertising falsely or misleadingly and misbranding or mislabeling” its products to create unfair competition, and ordered the company to cease and desist from those practices. By 1934, when the FTC ruled against Beacon Manufacturing, the company had almost entirely moved its operations to North Carolina. In 1925, Charles Owen II had opened a mill in Swannanoa to take advantage of the South’s lower costs and cheaper, non-union labor, producing a courser brand of blankets from wool, rather than the softer cotton used in New Bedford. Facing bankruptcy from loss of sales during the Depression and the effects of the FTC’s ruling, in 1933 Beacon consolidated its operations, moving the New Bedford mill, brick by brick, and its looms to Swannanoa, where it operated until 2002, at one time the largest blanket manufacturer in the world. Today, Sid Wainer & Son, produce wholesalers, occupies the former location of Beacon Manufacturing, and Beacon Blankets, especially their “Indian Blankets,” are prized by collectors.

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Deborah Manchester gave Wheeler Ball Field to the town for “the children of Adamsville” in honor of her nephew, Philip Manchester Wheeler, and great-nephew, Stafford Manchester Wheeler who was killed in World War II. Miss Debbie worked for many years in Manchester’s Store. She had no children of her own, but for six months of every year she and her sister Lizzie and her brother Abraham raised their orphaned niece and nephew. The field has been a gathering spot for local kids for decades, first for informal pick-up games and today for the local Little League. In the 1940s and 1950s, local organizations often held bake sales on its stone walls.

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On a frigid February in 1904, fifty riders and horses gathered at frozen Mashapaug Pond for an afternoon of racing on the ice. Beyond the pleasure of competition, the races gave local residents a chance to admire each other’s horses and to appreciate the conclusion of the ice harvesting season. When conditions made racing on the pond impossible, riders turned Reservoir Avenue into a speedway and spectators lined the street to watch, even when the weather turned bitterly cold.

Over the decades, Mashapaug Pond has remained a popular spot for recreational activities – though the pond isn’t without its share of risks. Reports of children falling through the ice in winter or drowning in the summer were common through the mid-twentieth century. Yet throughout the twentieth century, local youth continued to explore and play on Mashapaug Pond, ice skating in the winter when the pond froze, and exploring hidden clay caves on the pond’s coast. Today, with fewer children swimming in or skating on the pond, such incidents of danger are rare. But residents still worry about the health risks posed by pollutants in the pond water.The legacy of pollution has impacted the pond’s use as a recreational site. In the past, fishing on Mashapaug Pond was a source of food for some. However, contamination from the Gorham Manufacturing Company’s silver factory and pollution from stormwater runoff has made the pond’s fish poisonous to eat. Still, residents who fish for fun report catching large-mouth bass, yellow perch, carp, and even the occasional snapping turtle. A community boating center provided kayaks, canoes and lessons for people eager to get on the water before city officials grew alarmed at hazards caused by algae blooms and shuttered the site. Since 1999, though, a local dragon boat racing team has practiced on Mashapaug Pond between May and October.

Now, pass by J.T. Owens Fields on the western bank of Mashapaug Pond on any spring or summer day, and you’ll hear the sounds of baseball, softball and T-ball. Elmwood Little League, established in 1951, has brought hundreds of young ballplayers to the fields every season. The fields were dedicated to John T. Owens, a Providence native and famous amateur baseball player, nicknamed “Happy Owens” by local fans. Owens was killed as a serviceman in World War II, and the park created in his name now sports three baseball fields, two tennis courts, and a playground, all adjacent to an expansive view of Mashapaug Pond.

A large open space in a congested city, Mashapaug Pond and the three public parks along its shores call to children eager to explore and play. And although the horse races are unlikely to return, residents still hope that one day, Mashapaug Pond will be once again safe for swimming.

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