This site was famous during the revolution for an iron forge called Hope Furnace (across the street from the mill) which declined after 1800 to be replaced by the Hope cotton mill. The Hope Furnace was initiated by Governor Stephen Hopkins, and the Browns, the well-known wealthy merchants of Providence, along with other partners in 1765. It was named in honor of Hope Brown, mother of the four Brown brothers, Nicholas, Joseph, John and Moses who founded Brown University and Moses Brown School.
\nThe furnace starting making bar (“pig”) iron and nails, then, during the Revolution, cast cannons and cannon balls. The vast number of Hope cannon went to privateers (pirates) outfitting their commerce raiders in Northern seaport towns to attach British ships. Between 1778 and 1781 about 3,000 high quality cannon were produced for military and naval use. Eight of these field pieces were in a battery used by General Washington at the siege of Yorktown.
\nIn 1806 The Hope Cotton Factory Company bought the Hope Furnace Estate and mill privileges and built a 44-by-22 ft mill. In 1821 it was sold to two partners who built another mill which burned in 1844.
\nA Providence based partnership bought the site and founded the Hope Company, building the present large stone mill, four stories high with full basement, 183-by-55 feet, which began operating in 1847 with 430 looms producing 40-inch sheetings and employing 165 workers, 65 males and 100 women.
\nThe railroad arrived in 1874 and ran one freight and six passenger trains daily.
\nMore buildings were added in 1871, 1891 and 1916. In the early 1900s the mills manufactured lace and the complex was known as the Valley Lace Company and continued until 1972 when various commercial tenants occupied the buildings until the complex fell into receivership.
\nIn June, 2020 Paramount Development Group of Boston bought the property planning to “use the latest design and technology to rejuvenate the 18th century mill and all of its hydro-electric capabilities” and develop it into 193 affordable and market rate apartments. Also a Hope Historical Museum is planned for the small square building on the front right of the building which was the mill office. Planned completion is by the end of 2023.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":["National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for Hope Mill.
","Scituate, Rhode Island Statewide Historical Preservation Report, (Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, 1970).
","Dunwell, Steve, The Run of the Mill (David R. Godine Publisher, Boston, Massachusetts, 1978).
"],"factoids":["Inevitable decline--As you have seen on this tour only part of one of the 15 mills is still involved in textiles. By 1957, New England’s textile capacity had dropped to twelve percent, and the decline continued. Only the most tenacious companies survived.
\nThe New England textile industry was a victim of its own research; its mills served as the laboratory where the seeds of its destruction were perfected, mechanizing all phases of fabric manufacture. Perfected machines banished the “dark mystery” of textile manufacture, making it easy for anyone, anywhere to buy. The steam engine, which textiles had nurtured, created new optimum locations for industry which were outside New England, many of them overseas. Northern machine builders even provided mill designs to go with their machines. New England technology was for sale, and its export market bought it: first the South, then the developing nations. Fierce international competition was the inevitable result. Today New England mills don’t fight the South alone, they fight the world.
\nThe Industrial Revolution haunts New England. Vacant or tenanted, hundreds of mills remain today—standing corpses of industrial progress. They die, but remain on their feet. The carcass of its greatness, in parts, is picked clean to the skeleton; yet it still shows the last isolated twitches of life. As mentioned in the introduction 70 textile firms employing 2,500 workers continue to thrive in Rhode Island even occupying one of the mills on this tour (Anthony)! See the Rhode Island Textile Innovation Network.
"],"files":{"https://rhodetour.org/files/fullsize/e3f7a445b477a54dbb2a54d2f14badbc.jpg":{"id":1719,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Current view of Hope Mill","description":"The original 1844 five-story building is in the center, the 1916 weave shed is on the right behind the square mill office building. | Larry Manire | 2021","thumbnail":"https://rhodetour.org/files/square_thumbnails/e3f7a445b477a54dbb2a54d2f14badbc.jpg"},"https://rhodetour.org/files/fullsize/f54737eaada8c3ca2354d87bdaba7cad.jpg":{"id":1720,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Current aerial view of Hope Mill site","description":"The mill complex exhibits several stages in the evolution of textile manufacturing as manifested in the various buildings culminating in the 1916 weave shed. | Google Maps (annotated) | 2021","thumbnail":"https://rhodetour.org/files/square_thumbnails/f54737eaada8c3ca2354d87bdaba7cad.jpg"},"https://rhodetour.org/files/fullsize/756ba735193e2e933f4355ff111da9e1.jpg":{"id":1721,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Hope Mill","description":"Portion of Hope, Jackson, Fiskville and Arkwright, Rhode Island lithograph, 1889. |O.H. Bailey & Company Lithographers, online here.
| 1889","thumbnail":"https://rhodetour.org/files/square_thumbnails/756ba735193e2e933f4355ff111da9e1.jpg"}}}