National Park Service - Rhode Island Historical Preservation ...

P8,Form 10-900’.
0MB IC 1024-0018
- Eap- 10-31-84
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places
Inventory-Nomination Form
Continuation sheet 5 Item number 7
Page
street, with many minor variations in design. They date as early
as c.1860 and as late as c.1900. Many were company-built,
providing an alternative to multi-unit housing. Of this last
type of housing some 30 examples carl be found. Unlike the
cottages just described, they follow no one pattern, ranging from
1-1/2-story, flank-gable, 2-unit structures to 8-unit, 2-story,
hip-roofed buildings.. There are even two mansard-roofed former
rooming houses. It appears that the multi-unit buildings were
clustered off the main streets and consciously’ arrayed to avoid
the look of a typical company town.
Authorship plays a distinctive role in Peace Dale’s visual
coherence. As noted, the primary era of development here was
between 1860 and 1895. Throughout that period one man, Rowland
Hazard II who in association with other members of his family
owned and operated the mills, had control over Peace Dale’s
architectural development. He was himself an amateur architect
and designed quite a number of structures, beginning, with the
mill and the office building erected in 1856 #37E and 40, the
1872 worsted mill #37F, the Congregational Church #104, a
whole series of stone-arch bridges erected in the early 1880s
#35, 78, 92, 93, 162, and an addition to the church’ built in
1895. Other buildings are attributed to Hazard, notably the mill
office #37A of 1881. He was’ responsible for building dozens of’
other structures, particularly mill houses. The introduction and
prevalence of the L-plan cottage in Peace Dale is credited to.
Rowland Hazard II. He may have designed many of these cottages,
but only four are presently attributed to him: two early,
nominally "Gothic" cottages #88 and 114, and a pair of Queen
Anne L-plan cottages on Kingstown Road #45 and 46. Moreover,
Rowland Hazard called upon a professional architect with whom he
particularly liked to work, Frank Angell, to design at least two
major Peace Dale buildings: the railroad station #82 and the
Hazard Memorial #38. Angell probably also designed The Acorns
for Hazard and certainly planned alterations to the building
#71. Frank Angell’s hand is. likely also found in severallater -
buildings, among them a multi-unit mill house on Kersey Road #9
and a group of company-owned houses on Brown Street, Church
Street, and Indian Run Road dated to the late 1890s #149-151,
154, 164-167. -
Finally, the ambience of Peace Dale augments its unity.
Peace Dale is a very picturesque, quiet, attractive village,
casual in layout yet with a certain quality of kemptness and
amenity which sets it apart. Though the mills are the focus,
they do not-dominate the scene. This is not,the sort of factory