Slatersville, Rhode Island

Slatersville is a village on the Branch River in the town of North Smithfield, Rhode Island, United States. It includes the Slatersville Historic District, a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Slatersville was associated with and named for Samuel Slater and John Slater.

History

The region was originally settled in the 17th century by British colonists as a farming community. The village was founded in 1803 by entrepreneurs Samuel and John Slater, in partnership with the Providence firm of Almy and Brown. The firm purchased the land and began construction of a textile mill.^[2] By 1807, the village included the Slatersville Mill, "the largest and most modern industrial building" of its day, two houses for workers, the owner's house and the company store.^[2] When the first mill building was destroyed by fire in 1826, it was replaced by the large stone mill which stands on the site today. Behind the 1826 mills stands a stone mill of similar design built in 1843. The mills were powered by water from the large Slatersville reservoir.^[2] Slatersville's village green was laid out in 1838 in a traditional New England pattern. Many of the houses around the Green were built by the Slater company in 1810-20.^[2] They were substantially renovated earlier in the 20th century to make Slatersville look more like a traditional New England Village. At the head of the Green stands the Slatersville Congregational Church, a steepled Greek revival building, which houses the oldest continuously operated Sunday School in America. The Slater family owned the village until 1900 when it was sold to James R. Hooper who used the mills to bleach and dye cloth. In 1915, Hooper sold the Slatersville village to Henry P. Kendall. Kendall took a personal interest in the village and initiated many of the improvements which give Slatersville its traditional New England character.^[2] Today, Slatersville is now owned by private individuals and in 1973 it became a National Historic District, bounded by Main, Green, Church, and School Sts. and Ridge Rd., with 3,100 acres (13 km²), 149 buildings.^[1]

Gallery

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence County, Rhode Island

Further reading

• History You Can See - Scenes of Change In Rhode Island 1790-1910 written by Hadassah Davis and Natalie Robinson and published by the League of Rhode Island Historical Societies, Providence, 1986.
• Working Water - A Guide to the Historic Landscape of the Blackstone River Valley published by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the Rhode Island Parks Association, 1987.

References

External links

• The Slatersville Mill Village page on Samuel Slater website
• National Register of Historic Places information
• Slatersville, Rhode Island at the Open Directory Project