American history enthusiasts are generally aware of the story of Samuel Slater, and the developments that ensued following his arrival in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in January of 1790.
For readers who are not, here is a quick synopsis: young man of twenty-one, fresh off a seven-year apprenticeship in textile mill management in Belper, England, seeks opportunity and fortune in America. He is directed to Pawtucket, where Moses Brown—a venture-capitalist among many trying to be the first in America to industrialize thread and cloth production in an effort to reduce the new country’s dependence on Great Britain—is conducting experiments in cotton spinning. Brown and others put their faith, and money, behind the younger Slater, who improves upon their ineffective machinery designs, and voila! The American Industrial Revolution is launched.
While this is all true, the presentation of this narrative tends to overlook the back story.
For more than a century before Samuel Slater arrived in this country, Pawtucket, from its founding in 1670 by Joseph Jenks, Jr., had evolved from a site on the river Pawtucket (so named by the Wampanoag), where indigenous people convened for the bountiful runs of herring and shad, to a community of skilled artisans and iron workers who harnessed waterpower and built a thriving industry that had little to do with textiles.
Joseph Jenks, Jr. was the son of America’s first patent-holder who ran a successful ironwork in Hammersmith (now Saugus), Massachusetts. Venturing south in 1670, with his wife and young sons in tow, he set out to build a forge on the Pawtuxet River with the permission of the King.
Jenks landed instead at Pawtucket (Algonquin word for great falls or waterfall), where the travel paths converged at the fishing rock. Whether by accident or coincidence, it was here (and not Pawtuxet) where he constructed a forge and homestead. Did he perhaps encounter indigenous people who used the word Pawtucket, which he confused for Pawtuxet? Or, did he recognize the potential for power at the Pawtucket Falls and determine this was an ideal location for his forge? Whatever the answer, Jenks planted by the Pawtucket River (today’s Blackstone River), and began a tradition of ironworking that over time attracted some of America’s finest artisans and craftsmen.
The Nathaniel Jenks homestead, built around the 1690s. The small structure in the rear is believed to be the original homestead of Nathaniel’s father, Joseph Jenks, Jr. (Robert Grieve, An Illustrated History of Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Vicinity, 1897).
Sylvanus Brown was a highly skilled woodworker, ironworker, and shipbuilder, who served in the Continental Navy under Commander Esek Hopkins of Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War.
Sylvanus Brown had a workshop behind this home on today’s East Avenue, then known colloquially as Quaker Lane (so called, because three Quaker families had residences there in the late eighteenth century). Sylvanus Brown had been assisting Moses Brown in his experiments, which were being conducted in secret inside Ezekiel Carpenter’s fulling mill, located adjacent to the site of the early forge.
On Samuel Slater’s first night in Pawtucket, Moses asked Sylvanus to lodge him in his home and to essentially put Slater through his paces to determine if in fact this young man had the knowledge and experience he claimed to have in the Arkwright system of cotton spinning and manufacture.
Slater passed this test, and it was not long before, under cover of secrecy, Slater and Sylvanus Brown began to work countless hours together in Brown’s workshop to develop patterns from which the machinery was constructed, putting them into service in the rented fulling mill space.
Within two years, Slater and Brown had constructed functioning machinery for industrial carding, twisting, spinning, and winding. Moses Brown purchased land from the Jenks family on which to build the original mill under the partnership of Almy, Brown, and Slater. By 1793, the firm was in business, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Others of inimitable skill factored prominently in this story, including David Wilkinson, who became Slater’s brother-in-law on his marriage to Hannah Wilkinson. David continues to be celebrated today for his ingenuity and innovation as a machinist and engineer. His father, Oziel, built a mill, which today sits aside the Old Mill (as today’s Slater Mill was known) and is on the National Register of Mechanical Engineering Landmarks, in addition to the National Register of Historic Places. It was there that David invented a revolutionary screw-cutting lathe, and also where he developed an early steam engine.
Sylvanus Brown’s cottage also sits on the Slater Mill campus, having been relocated there in 1962 to prevent its demolition during the construction of Interstate 95. Visitors to the mill can therefore connect with the place in which some of America’s most important conversations took place.
Suffice it to say, Samuel Slater and Moses Brown, owe it all to the artisans of Pawtucket, and the legacy of Joseph Jenks, Jr., the Planter of Pawtucket; his sons, including Joseph Jenks, III, who became Rhode Island’s first governor not native of Newport; and to those artisans whom he attracted to this region to live, work, and build the necessary capacity to support his vision.
(Banner Image: The Slater Mill from Hodgson Park (Lori Urso))
For Further Reading:
Samuel Slater, Father of American Manufacturers, by E.H. Cameron. The Bond Wheelwright Company, 1960.
Memoir of Samuel Slater, by George S. White. Philadelphia, 1836.
Pawtucket Past and Present (a booklet printed for Slater Trust Company in 1917)
“Being a Brief Account of the Beginning and Progress of Its Industries and a Resume of the Early History of the City.” Written, designed and printed by direction of the Walton Advertising and Printing Company, Boston, Massachusetts, January 24, 1917
A Short Interpretive Essay on Samuel Slater’s Role in the Birth of the American Textile Industry, by Paul E. Rivard. Published by Old Slater Mill Association. Pawtucket, RI, 1974.
Sites to Visit:
Slater Mill Historic Site, 67 Roosevelt Avenue, Pawtucket, RI 02860. 401-725-8638.
(The walking tour “1670s Pawtucket: The Jenks Settlement” is offered in the fall and spring.)
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