The Moshassuck River

“Mooshausick,” the name given by the Narragansett tribe to the river that flows into the Providence River at Confluence Park, means “river where the moose watered.” The Moshassuck begins in Lincoln, Rhode Island, ten miles to the north, and after entering Providence is joined by its major tributary, the West River, known locally as Geneva Brook; as it widens from five feet in Lincoln to forty-five feet at points upriver in Providence, it passes through five ponds and 11 dams. In 1636 Roger Williams fled the Massachusetts Bay Colony and, with his followers, settled at a spring on the east bank of the Moshassuck, where he granted 13 original plots to himself and a dozen loving friends and neighbors, later adding land north and south as the settlement grew; most settlers were farmers whose narrow parcels fronted on Town Street, now North Main, and extended toward what became College Hill. In 1646 John Smith built a grist mill and tannery along the river, and during the 1700s additional mills, a distillery, a cooper, a paper mill, and a chocolate factory appeared there. In 1790 Joseph Congdon built an iron shop at 3 Steeple Street, the oldest surviving industrial building in Providence, and by 1812 there were 30 textile mills in or near Providence, including Slater Mill in Pawtucket. After the War of 1812 weakened maritime trade, commerce shifted toward industry, especially textiles, and productivity increased after George Corliss developed a more accurate and reliable steam engine in his factory along the West River. Between 1824 and 1828 the Blackstone Canal, with its locks and dams, linked inland factories to Worcester and the ports of Providence and Narragansett Bay; although rail transportation soon undercut the canal, prosperity continued in the Moshassuck and Blackstone valleys, and by 1880 Providence alone had 1,200 manufacturing plants while about 800 trains passed through the city each day carrying raw materials in and finished goods out. Industrial growth also polluted the river: factories first depended on rivers for power and later remained near them to dump manufacturing waste, while nearby worker housing added more refuse. Irish laborers connected with canal and railroad projects settled near the banks and helped create Saint Patrick’s Parish, and former slaves from reduced plantations in South Kingston, drawn by work on the waterfront, settled in Snowtown and Hardscrabble, the city’s first African-American neighborhoods, now known as Mount Hope. Pollution was blamed for cholera outbreaks in 1849 and 1854, and conditions improved after 1897 when interceptor sewers carried sewage to the treatment plant at Field’s Point, though storms still overwhelmed the system and sent untreated sewage and rainwater into the rivers. Water quality later improved with Rhode Island’s shift away from manufacturing toward cleaner service industries and with the Clean Water Act, while projects beginning in the 1980s reopened the riverfront to public use and drew renewed attention to the river; in 1991 River Rescue was organized by Citizens Bank and the University of Rhode Island’s Coast Resources Center to watch over the Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck Rivers.

Providence, Rhode Island · United States