Harrisville lies in the area known in early colonial days as the
Providence North Woods. The advent of industrialization at Harrisville came about 1825, with the construction of a spindle and flyer, factory on the west side of Clear River, south of East Avenue. By 1832 a cotton mill had been erected adjacent to the earlier factory. Both were owned by Andrew Harris. Upstream, Syra and Stephen Sherman established a mill in 1849 at a privilege about one-half mile northwest of Harris's. Separate settlements grew up around these factories.
Tinkham § Steere's acquisition of the Harrisville Mill was an event of great import for the village, initiating a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity. As the mills prospered, the villages grew. The availability of jobs attracted new residents, many of whom were foreign immigrants or children of immigrants. Most of the newcomers were of Irish birth or descent, but a substantial minority were of French-Canadian extraction.
The 1853 Harrisville Mill building, long the hub of the village, burned in 1895. Most of the present mill complex postdates this fire. The Panics of 1893 and 1907 ultimately brought about changes in the American woolen industry. These recessions spawned consolidations that led to the formation of two large woolen industry combinations, the American Woolen Company and the U.S. Worsted Company. Harrisville entered an important new phase with the leasing of the Tinkham mills to Stillwater Worsted Company in 1912.
Austin T. Levy, principal of Stillwater Worsted Company, undertakings were informed by a paternalism infused with a Utopian vision unusual if not unique in its scope and in the extent to which Levy realized it. Levy had great faith in the principles of American democracy and capitalism, and strove create an efficient, harmonious, well integrated community where all the resident employees devoted their efforts to making the company prosper, and the company in turn was committed to provide not only a livelihood for the employees but educational, recreational, social, and cultural opportunities as well.
Austin T. Levy died in 1951 but his beneficence to Harrisville continued, through grants from a charitable foundation he established in his wife's name before his death. June R. Levy died in 1972. The Stillwater Company closed the Harrisville Mill in 1973 and consolidated operations at its Virginia plants.
Its nineteenth- and early twentieth-century building fabric stands as a testament to 120 years of industrial prosperity and community growth and as a monument to the two men, William Tinkham and Austin T. Levy, who played instrumental rolesin the village's development.
Source: (
visit link)