National Park Service - Rhode Island Historical Preservation ...

0MB IC 1024 0018
NPS Form 10-900-i Exp- 10-31-84
3-82 -
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service -
National Register of Historic Places
Inventory-Nomination Form -
Continuation sheet 16 - Item number 7
Page 17
incorporated the firm as the Peace Dale Manufacturing Company in
1848 and began production of high-quality woolens in 1849. They
made shawls, which gained wide renown, in place -of the kersey
cloth and linsey-woolsey formerly produced. Manufacturing
capacity was- greatly increased in 1856, with the construction of
a-new and larger stone factory 37E. It was on of two buildings
designed that year for the company by Rowland G. Hazard’s son,
owland Hazard II, a latter-day gentleman architect. Most of the
- later buildings in the mill complex are either known to be his
work or are attributed to him.
In 1868 a stone finishing plant was erected. In 1872 the
Peace Dale Manufacturing Company again changed its product line,
converting to worsteds, becoming one of the first full-production
worsted plants in the country. - A new stone mill went up 37F
from Rowland Hazard II’s plans. A major wing 37C was added to
the first stone mill and that 1847 structure 37B was radically
reduced in size. Only the stair tower, belfry, and stepped end
gable remain; they were preserved, consciously, as a monument to
the firm’s early history. In the mid-187Os a small stone
laboratory building went up 37D and in 1881 a small yet
imposing brick-trimmed stone mill office 37A was erected. It
is believed the grouping of stone dye houses 37J was also
constructed in the 1880s, as well as the stone weave shed 37G.
The brick portions of the power plant 371 date to the 18908,
- and two wool warehouses 37K and 37L date to about 1900.
Because a network of waterways crisscrosses the mill yard,
there has always been a need for bridges facilitating internal
transportation and linking the mills to Kingstown Road and
Columbia Street. None of the small nineteenth-century bridges
within the mill complex survives. They have been replaced
sympathetically by a half-dozen timber spans bridging the
Saugatucket River and the mill race.
A perspective view of the.mill complex published in 1901
shows the Peace Dale plant at its fullest development and reveals
that it remains essentially intact. The most significant changes
since 1901 aside from the demolition of secondary structures
noted above involved the reworking of the roofs of the worsted
mill and weave shed 37F and 370. In the past twenty years new
- owners have re-landscaped the most visible portions of the mill
yard. This embellishment recalls the late nineteenth-century
greening of the factory complex when the Peace Dale Mills were
ivy-decked and surrounded by small lawns and great elms.