Moffett Mill was an early American water-driven belt and
pulley system special-order machine shop which produced tools
and repaired vital machine parts for nearby mills and farms in Lincoln, Rhode Island. Later offerings included furniture making and wagon building, boards, wooden boxes, and braided laces for shoes and corsets. Nine photographs and an 1810 - 2012 timeline accompany the extensive text on this historical marker at Chase Farm which reads:
MOFFETT MILL c. 1812
The Moffett Mill offers a rare glimpse of the early American machine shop, with most of its equipment intact, and an original water-driven belt and pulley system that looks much like it would have in the late 19th Century.
The Moffett Mill was a versatile, special-order machine shop that was among the first mills in the area to have new metal-working technology including a metal lathe and drill press. The Moffett Mill made tools and repaired vital machine parts for the mills and farms along Great Road in the early 1800s. For most of its life, the mill also included a blacksmith shop which enabled them to do work requiring both woodworking and metal crafting skills. Records show that at one time, there was also a busy grist mill business and wood cutting shop.
Ownership of the Moffett Mill passed down through generations of two families: the Olneys and the Moffetts. Local mechanic George Olney originally purchased the property at the bend in the Moshassuck River in 1810. By 1812, Olney had installed a machine shop and the mill was busy with contracts for nearby businesses including Olney's own thread mill at the pond in Lincoln Woods, Stephen Smith's Butterfly Factory, and Captain Wilbur Kelly's mill at Old Ashton. Olney also repaired wagons, sleighs, and tools for nearby farmers.
Arnold Moffett purchased the mill in 1850 and soon began expanding into new areas of business including furniture making and wagon building. At the time of the Civil War, the mill's second floor housed numerous braiding machines used to produce laces for shoes and corsets.
By 1880, grist mill orders accounted for a large share of the Moffett's business and the saw mill was busy producing boards and thousands of wooden boxes for customers and mills in the area.
Before the turn-of-the-century, however, production at Moffett Mill had begun to slow as large textile operations became less-reliant on outside machine shops. By 1900, orders from area mills had stopped, and in 1901, William Hannaway moved his blacksmith business out of the mill and relocated along Great Road. With the blacksmith shop gone, activity at the Moffett Mill continued to decline until at some point before 1910, the mill became inactive and the building was abandoned.
The Moffett family maintained the property until 1983 when it was sold to Edward Del Grande. In 1990, Del Grande donated the Moffett Mill site to the Town of Lincoln. In 2000, the Moffett Mill was stabilized and restored under a grant from the RI Department of Transportation.
Today, this unique artifact of Great Road's industrial past is opening for public tours under the protective stewardship of the Town of Lincoln and the Friends of Hearthside, Inc.
The preserved mill building is about 700 feet east-southeast of the sign. Though close by across a rolling field, trees block a direct line-of-sight view.