A Rhode Island historical marker on the Burrillville Town Common relates the business and philanthropic story of Austin T. Levy (1880 - 1951) and his impact on Harrisville, one of six villages in Burrillville. (The others are Glendale, Mapleville, Nasonville, Oakland, and Pascoag.) The plaque, at the southeast corner of the green, faces northeast towards the First Universalist Church and reads:
AUSTIN T. LEVY, MILL OWNER, PHILANTHROPIST, AND FRIEND
Austin T. Levy’s influence on Harrisville began in 1912, when he leased the mill in Harrisville and named it Stillwater Worsted Mill. His mill became unique because of Mr. Levy’s beliefs and management style. He devised new methods of operation, improved working conditions, increased wages, and started a profit-sharing plan. He said, “We believe that if the company has prosperity that the work people should share in that prosperity.”
In 1918 he built 22 seven-room houses for his workers. He rented houses not according to their cost but what each tenant’s earning allowed him to pay.
Through the years he purchased other mills in town, including the mills in Nasonville, Glendale, and Mapleville. He also bought the mill in Ashaway, RI and built 3 mills in Virginia and a mill in Woodstock, CT.
In 1933 when the Depression was at its worst, Mr. Levy began an initiative called the Burrillville Town Buildings Project in which he erected new buildings and gave them as gifts to the town. These included the Town Building, the Assembly Theater, the Ninth District Courthouse, and the Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library. He also remodeled the First Universalist Church, changing the architecture from Victorian to Colonial.
In 1937 Levy’s mill was very prosperous. He gave his workers vacation pay - two week’s vacation with 4 weeks’ pay. This was the first of its kinds not only in the region, but in the U.S.
In 1949 he built the Post Office in Harrisville and gifted it to the United States government. It was the first time in the country’s history that a privately funded building was donated to the nation. It took an act of Congress to enable the government to accept such a gift.
Other projects including building a new high school (now the Callahan School), the Bridgeway in Pascoag, and the Pascoag Post Office.
Mr. Levy died in November 1951. That service was held at the Assembly Theater. All 354 seats were taken and the overflow attendance gathered at the First Universalist Church. You can visit his gravesite by walking across the street to the vacant lot next to the Universalist Church. His ashes lie beneath a granite stone overlooking the mill pond; Mr. Levy thought this view to be among the most peaceful he’d ever seen. Harrisville would not be the same without the philanthropic gifts from Mr. and Mrs. Austin T. Levy.
Erected by the Burrillville Historical Preservation Society in 2017 with funding from a Rhode Island Foundation Centennial Grant.
A collage of photographs fills the left third of this display. From top to bottom they are: The Memorial Building, June Rockwell Levy, the First Universalist Church, and Austin T. Levy with the following corresponding captions: