National Park Service - Rhode Island Historical Preservation ...

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United States Department of the Interior -
National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places
Inventory-Nomination Form -
Continuation sheet 47
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‘t 45
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Thus began Peace Dale. It remained very small. In the
early 1820s there were only 30 inhabitants here, the wood-frame
mill buildings,- five dwellings and a store. The mills had been
taken- on by Rowland Hazard’s sons, Isaac P. and Rowland G.
Hazard. By the end of the decade they had the-operation fully
mechanized, producing coarse kersey cloth End linsey woolsey.
Little new development occurred until the Hazard mills burned in
the mid 1840s. The brothers decided to begin anew. They rebuilt
their hydropower system to increase production capacity and in
1847 completed a fireproof stone factory with distinctive stepped
gable and double-monitor roof. They incorporated the Peace Dale
Manufacturing Company in 1848 and in 1849 started to produce
woolen shawls in place of the cheap yard goods of former days.
Peace Dale shawls gained a considerable reputation and from this
period on, the company specialized in high-quality products.
Isaac P. Hazard served as company president until 1864. He
took an-interest in politics and repeatedly represented South
Kingstown in the state General Assembly. Rowland G. Hazard not
only helped operate the family textile business, he assumed a
role in local and national affairs, and pursued broader moral and
philosophical topics. He wrote extensively. His "Essay on
Language" 1834 was highly regarded. While travelling in
England he met and befriended John Stuart Mill. He was staunchly
opposed to slavery, helped found the Republican Party in
furtherance of abolition, and -in 1860 participated in the party
convention which nominated Lincoln. During the Civil War, though
a pacifist, he promoted the Union cause through published essays
bolstering Northern financial credit abroad. On a local level,
Rowland G. Hazard built village schools and the South Kingstown
Town Hall. He underwrote a library society and later published
an essay on "The Duty of Individuals to Support Science and
Literature" 1885.
Rowland G. Hazard’E sons, John N. and Rowland Hazard II, ran
the Peace Dale Mills in the late nineteenth century. It was the
latter who had the greatest impact on development of the village.
As a junior member of the firm in 1856 he designed a new stone -
weaving mill and a stone building across from the mills to house
offices, a store, the post office, and a public hall. Over the
next four decades, as amateur architect and/or client,- he saw to
the building of over half the extant physical fabric of Peace
Dale. -
In 1872 the Hazards again pioneered as textile
manufacturers. They converted and greatly enlarged their plant