No mill in Providence conveys the look and feel of the state’s early industrial period so well as this one, located as it is down the hill from Manton Avenue in a rural setting adjacent to the Woonasquatucket River. Like Wanskuck this area was very much in the countryside when built. The mill typifies the second generation of Rhode Island mills in its use of stuccoed rubblestone construction and in its overall form, a long and narrow central section with a stout tower located on the narrow end and capped by an arcaded belfry. Extending from the main section of the mill are a one-story building used as a weave shed and a stone picker house. On Manton Avenue itself is the mill office, once connected to the mill by a passageway to the tower at the second level. Nearby is a row of mill houses built for the workers at this then-isolated location. Elisha Dyer was one of many Providence merchants who turned to manufacturing in the first half of the nineteenth century. Dyer family members continued to manufacture cotton products here into the 1860s. Taking advantage of recently available federal-income-tax credits, the complex was rehabilitated as office space in the early 1980s.
– 2003 Providence Guide to Architecture
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