Rhode Island from 35,000 Feet
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River + Mill = Town
I have a strong sense of place, and my roots have had a significant impact on my life. I lived the first eighteen years of my life in a dying mill town, Natick, along the banks of the Pawtuxet River in Rhode Island.
"When the glaciers that covered New England in the Ice Age receded, the melting ice cut numerous riverbeds along the four-hundred-foot decline from the northern and western borders of Rhode Island down into the Narragansett Bay. They also left numerous ponds, lakes, and coves amid the ridges and island peaks. The Blackstone River, the Moshassuck, the Woonasquatucket, and the Pawtuxet rivers were fast-moving, almost never frozen, and never dry. Their various falls and small ponds (for water storage behind dams) proved perfectly adapted for mill wheels to generate steady and certain sources of power" (William G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island, A History, 115–16 ).
The sites along the Pawtuxet river that were “perfectly adapted for mill wheels” were soon recognized and readily adapted by early settlers. As the river flowed from its sources in Scituate and Coventry, dams and mills were built. Around each dam and mill, a small town was established that grew and prospered. The towns that grew around each mill are etched in my memory.
Along the southern branch of the Pawtuxet arose the mill towns of Washington, Anthony, Quidnick, Crompton, and Centerville. Along the northern branch were Hope, Jackson, Fiskville, Arkright, Harris, Phenix (sic), and Lippitt. The two branches joined at River Point, which was the name of another mill and town, followed by Natick, Pontiac, and Hillsgrove before the river ends its journey into the Narragansett Bay.
“Insurance Maps of Pawtuxet Valley, Kent and Providence Counties, Rhode Island,” (New York: Sanborn-Perris Map Co., 1898), Wikimedia Commons. Adapted by Shauna Perez (c) 2021.
Each town is a living memory of times gone by, a virtual history of the Industrial Revolution. These towns hosted some of the earliest battles between management and labor along with the rise of fabulous fortunes and wealth amidst the poverty of company houses, stores, and farms. Today, they contain all the skeletal residue of the post-Industrial Era and the struggle of immigrant populations to survive and prosper despite all their initial hardships.
The Pawtuxet River and the valley it carved on its way to the Narragansett Bay imprinted itself forever in my mind and in my memory. After leaving my boyhood home over sixty-eight years ago, the river keeps coming back to me, and it grows larger each time I revisit it in my imagination.
During my life away from the Pawtuxet, as I matured and tasted different layers of life’s experiences, my mind always takes me back to my boyhood home and neighborhood and the mill town of Natick on the Pawtuxet River. It seems I am compelled to go back in memory, as a sort of sanity check, to compare where I am now in life with the life I knew as a boy growing up along its banks.
The Pawtuxet River and the valley it carved on its way to the Narragansett Bay imprinted itself forever in my mind and in my memory. After leaving my boyhood home over sixty-eight years ago, the river keeps coming back to me, and it grows larger each time I revisit it in my imagination.
During my life away from the Pawtuxet, as I matured and tasted different layers of life’s experiences, my mind always takes me back to my boyhood home and neighborhood and the mill town of Natick on the Pawtuxet River. It seems I am compelled to go back in memory, as a sort of sanity check, to compare where I am now in life with the life I knew as a boy growing up along its banks.
A Bird’s-Eye View
As my life progressed, my view of the river expanded as well. I began to see the river and its valley in my mind from progressively higher and higher levels of elevation. During my business travel days later in life, I had occasions to experience the ultimate bird’s-eye view of the river and its valley while on home-bound flights. Toward the end of these long flights, I always had promise of relieving the tedium as the aircraft approached North America, knowing that the bird’s-eye view was possible. On the flight progress screen in front of the cabin, I note that Delta 73 has made landfall near St. John’s. Right on time—seven hours into the flight from Munich to John F. Kennedy Airport. With nearly 150 overseas trips, flight formats and timing had become very familiar to me.
The aircraft flies south along the coast from St. John’s toward New York. Flying at 35,000 feet with clear visibility and good weather, I can easily spot the Cape Cod hook and the greater Boston area. However, it’s the terrain just south of this area that really excites me. Sometimes the airplane flies along the coast, and I have a bird’s-eye view of the entire state of Rhode Island, looking north toward Providence with the Jamestown and Newport Bridges spanning the Narragansett Bay in the foreground. I can just make out the bend in the bay that forms Warwick Neck, and tucked behind it is the Pawtuxet River Valley and the little mill town of Natick where I was born.
On other flights, the airplanes fly directly over Providence and south toward Westerly along the west side of the Narragansett Bay. On these flights, I am able to look down and identify Warwick Cove, Theodore Francis Green Airport, the Old Post Road (Route 1) and Interstate 95 as it winds its way north-south through Rhode Island. Although it is difficult, I always feel I can identify the Pawtuxet River Valley as it flows east toward the Narragansett Bay, and I can measure in my mind where Natick and my old neighborhood should be. Thoughts of my sister, Theresa, and brother, Mike—still living there—and my parents, buried together in a grave some six miles below me, always make me very nostalgic.
I am aware of the land slipping beneath me at 500 miles per hour. In just twenty minutes, the jetliner will be landing at John F. Kennedy Airport. I recall that it takes about three hours to drive the same distance on Interstate 95 to New York City from where I lived in Rhode Island.
I never cease to marvel at each ocean crossing. My business trips took me to London, Paris, Munich, and occasionally the Middle East, and I begin to think about the immigrants and their travel to the United States from these parts of the world. My parents and grandparents had been part of that wave of immigrants coming to the United States in the late nineteenth century. From cushy frequent-flyer upgrades, I eat caviar and drink champagne as I cross the ocean. I can only begin to imagine the hardships of travel just 100 years ago.
Within minutes, the Boeing 767 swings out over the Atlantic and circles Sandy Hook in a holding pattern before landing. As it makes its final approach to JFK, I can see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island off to the left in New York Harbor. I remember that at eleven months old, my mother had arrived in the United States on one of the early liners crammed with Italian immigrants. I can imagine her being held by my grandmother as they passed the Statue of Liberty on their way to Ellis Island.