Like every other mill you are visiting, Phenix Mill was “paternalistic” providing necessities such as housing, utilities, fuel, churches, civic organizations and education.  Shopping and professional services grew along with the village and Phenix “achieved an importance unrelated to its size” providing services for surrounding villages.  Check out the village square in the next block up the street, and the 1871 Phenix Hotel which still exists.  Outside of Providence, Phenix was THE place to shop in the 1800s until Arctic surpassed it! A spinning mill was built here next to the river by the Roger Williams Manufacturing Company in 1809.  It burned in 1821.  The Phenix Company rebuilt, and added a new stone mill in 1821 along with a water wheel and force pump for fire protection; but the company failed in 1830 and was bought by a new partnership that produced what was said to be the first 2¼-to 3-yard wide sheeting made in the country.  Additional construction by 1882 produced a mill 328’ X 43’, capable of operating 21,536 spindles and 430 looms.  The 122 by 192-foot weave shed across the street was built in 1902. Textile manufacturing continued until 1960 when the factory was purchased by a pharmaceutical company, Scott Laboratories.  It later housed various other manufacturers, including Adams Scientific, a biotech company that moved out in 1994.  In the summer of 1995, fire destroyed one of the complex’s smaller buildings, which Adams Scientific had used.  By 2003 the mill was vacant and sold at tax sale for $1.  Then, on March 30, 2005 the main four-story building burned to the ground.  The remaining three-story building is now condominiums and the weave shed across the street is occupied by Ricci Furniture.

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Unfortunately the Natick Mill burned down in 1941 but we include this site on the tour because by 1883 the four original buildings had been joined into a single entity and further extended until it stretched 1,350 feet with a uniform height of six stories. It was Rhode Island's largest single mill structure and one of the largest in the world, comparable in the magnitude of its elongation to the Lowell and Lawrence mills in Massachusetts or those in Manchester, New Hampshire. If you walk up on the bridge over the river and look downstream you can see what became, by 1886, the largest mill dam in West Warwick, a granite barrier 20 feet high and 166 feet across with an impressive waterfall.  On the left side of the dam you see the remains of the 50-foot-wide raceway to the mill that ran along 800 feet and into the mill, where the water flowed through a turbine chamber, then out a 500 foot long, 30-foot wide, granite block tailrace to rejoin the river. Starting near the bridge you can drive down the hill on the dirt road (Water Street) along the river and past the empty lot and an auto salvage business to get an idea of the size of the site.  This ill-fated mill was started by Perez Peck and others as the Natick Manufacturing Company in 1807.  They built the Natick Red Mill, “to manufacture cotton yarn by water-powered machinery,” and in the 1820s and 30s added other mills near the river.  They were then bought by the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company. The mills prospered until the 1880s when a series of events caused a forced sale. The Knight Company bought the mill in 1882 and continued running it in the late 1920s when competition from Southern mills, and depressed economic conditions, resulted in labor unrest and strikes that forced the company into bankruptcy. The Natick Mill, once the pride of the Knights, saw a great deal of rioting in 1922.  At one point a machine gun (see picture) was mounted on the roof of the Natick Mill and National Guardsmen manned the weapon and patrolled the streets.  Eventually concessions were made and the workers went back to work but in truth, the day of New England's supremacy in the textile industry was over. The Knights declared bankruptcy in 1935.  The mill, which had not operated since 1930, was bought in 1935 by Nicola Zenga at public auction for $10,000.  The vacant mill was badly damaged by flames on the night of Feb. 22, 1938 and was eventually torched on the Fourth of July eve in 1941.

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Only two months before Washington would burn at the hands of British troops during the War of 1812, Providence would witness the destruction by fire of a major monument atop the East Side. A victim of arson, the First Congregational Church (1795) was destroyed June 14, 1814. The structure that burned was the congregation’s second church; the first was situated on the present site of the Superior Courthouse on South Main Street. An unnamed man, presumed to have suffered from mental illness, placed a lighted candle inside one of the exterior columns. Writing 72 years after the fact, historian Welcome Arnold wrote that “it was supposed that . . . [he] wished to see what kind of a sight the two steeples would make burning and falling to the ground.” Although the town offered a reward for the person responsible, they never prosecuted anyone for the crime. The church was rebuilt soon after, designed by Providence architect John Holden Greene. The Federal-style building has classical arches and urns combined with soaring pointed Gothic style windows with delicate tracery decoration. Originally the First Congregational Church, the congregation became associated with the Unitarian movement and eventually changed its name.

If the church is open, have a look inside; after taking in the spare and tasteful elegance of its interior, note the tight rectangular pews that are arranged in sequence along the ground floor and mezzanine. Spaces for contemplation and devotion? Yes, but also prime real estate in a city that was leading the Industrial Revolution and, by 1816, was well on its way toward becoming one of the most affluent cities in America. By 1910, Providence was second in the nation in terms of per-capita wealth.

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