The Ashton Historic District is a historic district in Cumberland, Rhode Island. The district consists of a mill and an adjacent mill village that was built for the workers of the mill. It lies between Mendon Road, Scott Road, Angell Road, Store Hill Road, Front Street and Middle Street. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 1, 1984.
Ashton Historic District | |
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| Location | Cumberland, Rhode Island |
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| Area | 61 acres (25 ha) |
| NRHP reference No. | 84000367 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | November 1, 1984 |
In 1867, in a program of further expansion, the Lonsdale Company erected a large, three and-one-half-story, mansard-roof brick mill at Ashton on the east side of the Blackstone River north of Lonsdale. It was later enlarged to four full stories with a flat roof.[2]
A compact group of associated brick row houses and other buildings, including a handsome mansard-roofed office, also were built. This mill played a major role in 19th-century textile technology and was the site of the first large-scale test of the high-speed Sawyer spindle, one of the earliest of its type developed in the United States. The mill houses here are noteworthy for their simple form and dense arrangement.
In 1922, it's textile mills were temporarily shutdown by the New England Textile Strike over an attempted wage cut and hours increase.[3][4]
The village is tucked into a narrow, low flood plain site at the bottom of a bluff carrying Mendon Road (Rhode Island Route 122) in this section.
See also
edit- Old Ashton Historic District, across the river in Lincoln
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence County, Rhode Island
References
edit- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
- ^ "NRHP nomination for Ashton Historic District" (PDF). Rhode Island Preservation. Retrieved August 3, 2014.
- ^ E. Tilden, Leonard (1923). "New England Textile Strike". Monthly Labor Review. 16 (5): 14 (pdf, pg. 3) – via JSTOR.
- ^ Foner, Philip Sheldon; Foner, Philip Sheldon (January 1, 1991). History of the labor movement in the United States. 9: The T.U.E.L. to the end of the Gompers era / by Philip S. Foner. New York: Intl Publ. pp. 19–31. ISBN 978-0-7178-0674-4.
41°56′15.43″N 71°25′57.09″W / 41.9376194°N 71.4325250°W