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ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAWTUCKET.
Pawtucket and Central Falls along the broad lines just laid down; to trace briefly, but at the same time comprehensively, the various steps in the progress of the community from its insignificant beginnings
until the present. The first scene in the story is a clearing in the wilderness, by the side of a picturesque waterfall, whose power was without doubt utilized to turn the machines of the pioneer settler, one of the first skilled workers in iron on the American Continent. As he went on with his work of supplying other pioneers who were engaged in subduing the wilderness, and in bringing its savage denizens, both man and beast, into subjection, the maker of tools and weapons became a man of consequence and distinction. His work was of prime necessity. Under the prevailing conditions, without his skill of hand and brain, or that of some other man similarly gifted, social progress would have been impossible.’ His workshop became a nucleus, a social nerve centre, to which other pioneers constantly gravitated in search of the essential tools they needed; and the neighborhood, because of this fact, had unmistakable social advantages, which attracted and retained other pioneers, who here established their homes. Thus began the settlement at Pawtucket falls, around the home and forge of Joseph Jenks, Jr. The prosperity of the worker in iron continued to increase and descended to his children. The family took its place among the leading ones in the state, and its leader in the second generation attained to the dignity of governor of the colony. But the settlement at Pawtucket falls, although meanwhile slowly increasing, was yet in a sense the private domain of the Jenkses, was at least dominated by them, and as an independent community was in a state of chrysalis. At first the locality was within the jurisdiction of Providence, and afterward in the bounds of North Providence, but in itself it was only an outlying hamlet of no more importance than many another similar group of dwellings. As a part successively of the two towns it had a share in their life and development, while at the same time the course of events was preparing the insignificant village for a larger future and a life of its own. On the east side of the river at the falls, a similar but smaller hamlet slowly grew up in the beginning and middle of the eighteenth century, attracted no doubt primarily by the proximity of the ]enks’ forge. Although in the limits of another colony, the natural bonds of similarity of occupation and human fellowship resulting from propinquity gradually brought about a social unity between the two hamlets. The building of the first bridge in 1713 was the first visible bond of union, although it was intended more as a means of general travel than as a connecting ligament between the two groups of widely scattered dwellings at the
Page 010
Text
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF PAWTUCKET.
Pawtucket and Central Falls along the broad lines just laid down; to trace briefly, but at the same time comprehensively, the various steps in the progress of the community from its insignificant beginnings
until the present. The first scene in the story is a clearing in the wilderness, by the side of a picturesque waterfall, whose power was without doubt utilized to turn the machines of the pioneer settler, one of the first skilled workers in iron on the American Continent. As he went on with his work of supplying other pioneers who were engaged in subduing the wilderness, and in bringing its savage denizens, both man and beast, into subjection, the maker of tools and weapons became a man of consequence and distinction. His work was of prime necessity. Under the prevailing conditions, without his skill of hand and brain, or that of some other man similarly gifted, social progress would have been impossible.’ His workshop became a nucleus, a social nerve centre, to which other pioneers constantly gravitated in search of the essential tools they needed; and the neighborhood, because of this fact, had unmistakable social advantages, which attracted and retained other pioneers, who here established their homes. Thus began the settlement at Pawtucket falls, around the home and forge of Joseph Jenks, Jr. The prosperity of the worker in iron continued to increase and descended to his children. The family took its place among the leading ones in the state, and its leader in the second generation attained to the dignity of governor of the colony. But the settlement at Pawtucket falls, although meanwhile slowly increasing, was yet in a sense the private domain of the Jenkses, was at least dominated by them, and as an independent community was in a state of chrysalis. At first the locality was within the jurisdiction of Providence, and afterward in the bounds of North Providence, but in itself it was only an outlying hamlet of no more importance than many another similar group of dwellings. As a part successively of the two towns it had a share in their life and development, while at the same time the course of events was preparing the insignificant village for a larger future and a life of its own. On the east side of the river at the falls, a similar but smaller hamlet slowly grew up in the beginning and middle of the eighteenth century, attracted no doubt primarily by the proximity of the ]enks’ forge. Although in the limits of another colony, the natural bonds of similarity of occupation and human fellowship resulting from propinquity gradually brought about a social unity between the two hamlets. The building of the first bridge in 1713 was the first visible bond of union, although it was intended more as a means of general travel than as a connecting ligament between the two groups of widely scattered dwellings at the