USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 47
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Rhode Island at one time had an extensive manufactory of artificial butter, butterine and oleomargerine, with several establishments, the products of which were sold extensively in other states as well as in Rhode Island. This industry was undermined by federal excises, levied principally to protect dairy butter from competition, imposed on "colored" butter sub- stitutes. When an ingenious Rhode Islander found a method of making a butter substitute from vegetable oils, without using coloring matter other than vegetable oils in their original purity, the sale of the "uncolored" yellow margarine without paying the excise was construed as a violation of the federal statute. The larger factories were closed, and only a remnant of the once prosperous artificial butter business is continued.
Not all of the old industries have passed, however. The Barstow Stove Company, founded in 1836, and eventually absorbing its rival, the Spicer & Peckham Stove Company, is still manufacturing and selling coal and gas ranges, the latter of the most modern patterns and equipped with the most approved appliances for regulating heat and fuel consumption. John Mason began manufacturing and selling dyes and chemicals for use in textile factories so
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early as 1815. The Mason enterprise is continued in 1930 under the name and style of Arn- old, Hoffman & Company, which was one of the earliest to utilize the electric power generated at Niagara Falls in the manufacture of chemicals. Arnold, Hoffman & Company maintain a selling agency in Rhode Island ; its principal factories are beyond the borders. The Holbrook Raw Hide Company, established 1822, makes leather loom picks, leather faced hammers, raw- hide mallets, and other leather devices, including several that were originated by the com- pany. The Akerman-Standard Company, bookbinders, in six years more will pass the century mark. Philip L. Voelker is the present proprietor of a brush manufacturing factory that was established in 1858; the brushes include all types used in factory processes. L. Vaughn Com- pany has been manufacturing sash and blinds, doors, and other factory made accessories of house construction since 1847. F. O. Draper Company of Pawtucket, established in 1860, manufactures scouring soaps and other soaps for factory use, besides a general line of soaps and soap powders. L. F. Pease Company was established in 1866, to manufacture sails prin- cipally ; it continues in 1930, although its principal lines are awnings and tents rather than sails.
The Rumford Chemical Company was established in 1854, with its principal factory in the northern part of what is now the town of East Providence. The company was named for Count Rumford, an eminent chemist, and gave his name to the village surrounding the factory. The Rumford Chemical Company was founded by George F. Wilson and Eben N. Horsford, the latter of whom had been Rumford professor of chemistry at Harvard University. The new establishment planned to manufacture Horsford's acid phosphate of lime as a substitute for cream of tartar, a bread preparation, baking powder, yeast powder, and Horsford's acid phosphate. It was claimed for the baking powder that it effected the purposes of yeast with- out decomposing flour, and increased rather than decreased the food value. Baron Liebeg, the distinguished chemist who invented the first extract of beef, said of the Horsford prepara- tion : "I consider this invention as one of the most useful gifts which science has made to mankind. It is certain that the nutritive value of flour will be increased ten per cent. by your phosphate preparation." Besides the cream of tartar, baking power, yeast powder and other similar dry preparations, the Rumford company produced acid phosphate in liquid form, and it had and still has a nation-wide sale as a medicine prescribed for indigestion in some forms and for slight nervous disorders. The company also introduced a carbonated water, tinctured with acid phosphate, and sweetened with fruit juices and syrups, which was bottled and sold as a beverage under the name of "Phosa." The bottle container was distinctive, as it was closed by an interior glass ball held by the pressure of the carbonating gas against a rubber ring bearing. To open the bottle, the glass ball was pushed downward into the neck of the bottle, where it was held against further descent and against interference with the flow of the liquid by glass shoulders produced by convolutions in the glass. In later years an unusually large industry in the production of carbonated beverages, sold as tonic or soda water, was developed in Rhode Island; many of the pioneers in this industry learned the essential prin- ciples of manufacturing and bottling carbonated waters while working for the Rumford Chemical Company in the "Phosa" department. "Phosa" was higher priced than most car- bonated beverages, and the production was discontinued, after a short period of sale in a simpler form of container. Liquid acid phosphate was also sold for use at soda fountains in making phosphated beverages, and is still sold in large quantities for this purpose, and is used wherever phosphated beverages are sold ; it gives a tart acid tang to beverages compounded of carbonated water and fruit juices. Baking powder has been the largest product of the Rum- ford Chemical Company, and the Rumford Baking Powder is sold wherever baking powder is used. In its Providence plant the Rumford Chemical Company maintain one of the largest and most completely equipped printing plants in New England. The product includes labels and printed wrappers for the company's chemical preparations, besides advertising mat- ter and the Rumford cook book. In the printing department advantage is taken of the most
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modern types of automatic feeding, high-speed printing presses. The printing is not only in English, but in all other modern languages, because the company's products are sold in all the continents and remote islands.
The Miles Alarm Till Company, established in 1859, manufactured an automatic locking money drawer ; the drawer was opened by a selected combination of finger pulls beneath, and rang a bell; the modern cash register has replaced the alarm till almost universally. Stillman White established a foundry in 1856, and manufactured an alloyed metal for bearings, which resisted heating and was useful on high-speed machines; the metal was sold under the name of S. White metal, and is still manufactured. W. H. Durfee began to make clocks with tubular chimes in Providence in 1874; the chimes were made and sold in various combina- tions, striking hours, half hours, and quarter hours; the company continues in 1930. Oliver Johnson & Son began manufacturing and selling paint in Providence in 1833, and have con- tinued nearly a century. Their old line of What Cheer paints has been discontinued; the company's products are sold under the trade names of Ojaco and Decocote.
Joseph W. Rice moved from Coventry to Providence, and in 1861 engaged in the selling of paints. In 1886 he organized the United States Gutta Percha Paint Company; its factories in 1930 are the largest in Rhode Island devoted to the manufacture of paint, and the product is sold all over the country, particularly in large quantities to great corporations which use the Rice paint exclusively. The business is continued by Herbert W. Rice. A distinctive product is "Barrelled Sunlight," a white enamel paint, manufactured by a process invented by Rice. "Barrelled Sunlight" was used first in factories, because of its enduring whiteness, to conserve light. The paint is sold for domestic use also, and an outside paint of the same name is made and sold by the company. The Rhode Island factory gives employment to 200 persons.
The American Multiple Fabric Company was established in 1873, one of its distinctive products being a heavy fabric fire hose with a continuous rubber lining. Another, since dis- continued, was an "evaporating horse blanket." The organization continues in 1930. Other establishments, most of more recent origin, which engage in distinctive lines or employ large numbers of persons, include : Atlantic Biscuit Company, General Baking Company, and Ward Baking Company ; Combination Ladder Company ; Gibsons, Incorporated, candy; General Electric Company ; American Enamel Company ; L. B. Darling Fertilizer Company ; Rhode Island Cardboard Company; Standard Oil Company, oil refining plant, in East Providence. The Herreshoff Company of Bristol, maintains an international reputation for the construc- tion of fine yachts, including America's cup defenders. New corporations, established to exploit entirely new lines of manufacturing, include the C. E. Manufacturing Company, one of the largest organizations for making radio tubes; Leonard Rooke Company, manufacturing valves and other devices for regulating the temperature of water.
The history of manufacturing in Rhode Island shows how definitely successful produc- tion is related to constantly changing environment, and how industries may rise to meet a fresh demand and decline when the need has passed. Even in staple lines styles and fashions change, and the alert manufacturer must respond to the variations and adapt his product accordingly. Rhode Island's dominating position in great industries-such as wool, cotton and silk textiles ; iron, steel and machinery ; jewelry and rubber-is tribute to sound founda- tions and a remarkable number of unusual captains of industry. The state has survived periods of industrial depression in certain lines, because of the diversity and versatility of its manu- factures. The manufacturing interests have been alert, and successful because of their zeal. A very large part of Rhode Island reputation as a manufacturing state has rested upon the integrity and business honor of the men who have directed industry. The name of a Rhode Island product is an assurance, usually, of merit.
CHAPTER XXX. RHODE ISLAND FARMING AND FISHING.
HEN William Blackstone left the home in Boston which had become uncom- fortable because Puritan neighbors had already begun to exercise the habit of having "a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors," which was later enjoined upon them by the snooper statute,* in order that he might enjoy the pleasant solitude of Study Hill in a valley which was as fair in the seventeenth century because of a natural profusion of trees as it is famed in the twentieth century because of an unending con- fusion of factories, he drove a few cattle, among which probably was the white bull (or its sire) on which occasionally he rode into Providence to preach. With him he carried also scions of fruit trees for the orchard on Study Hill, from which he gathered the Sweeting apples for the bag from which he rewarded good boys and girls who attended his Sunday classes. Whereas Roger Williams himself carried no cattle in his hurried winter flight from Massa- chusetts to the lodges of friendly Indians, the companions who joined him later at Providence had livestock, pasture and forage for which were considered in the laying out of long town lots with narrow fronts, the Common close to the Seekonk, and the grassy fields in the Woon- asquatucket valley. The fine, rich grass land in the valley of the Pawtuxet was the prize at stake in early litigation with which the name of William Harris has been associated. No doubt the vessel chartered by the Portsmouth and Newport settlers for their pilgrimage from Massa- chusetts carried livestock as well as furniture and other property ; the assignments of land at Pocasset included pasturage. Samuel Gorton drove cattle on his several migrations, from Massachusetts to Plymouth, from Plymouth to Portsmouth, from Portsmouth to Providence, and from Providence to Warwick. Animal husbandry was an important part of the agricul- tural economic life in Rhode Island in the seventeenth century, yielding, besides beef, pork, mutton, poultry, eggs, milk, butter and cheese, hides, wool and leather. Horses were raised for export to the West Indies, and tobacco for shipment north. Secondary products of animal husbandry, butter, cheese, hides, leather, salted provisions and wool, also were available in quantity for export. Besides raising European vegetables from seeds, sets and cuttings brought from England, the colonists learned the Indian methods of cultivating the indigenous potato, corn, beans and tobacco. They imported scions for orchards, and began to improve the wild berries of America by cultivation. The waters of the Bay yielded shellfish in plen- teous quantities --- so vast that the temptation to dredge for shells to be manufactured into lime was curbed by legislation ; while Bay and rivers teemed with other fish. Life in Rhode Island was never so primitive as on some frontiers, because open waterways made communication with older civilization convenient, and trade and commerce flourished. By producing a sur- plus for export, agriculture furnished the wealth that made trade and commerce bilateral and profitable.
Rhode Island was not planned to be an agricultural paradise. So much of the land is adapted to forestry that Rhode Island, even in the twentieth century, is outstanding among the states in the proportion of its area still devoted to fine stands of trees. The ice of the latest glacial period, besides scraping clear and leaving exposed bedrock ledges, strewed many a plain or open hillside with boulders, or left a deposit of boulders scarcely buried in a loose dressing of silt. The stone walls characteristic of old Rhode Island farms were neither feudal tribute to baronial magnificence nor permanent memorials of broad estates, so much as convenient
*Ordinance of 1642.
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depositories for rocks pried from the soil to make the latter arable. Truth there is also in the tradition that sheep were raised in colonial days in Rhode Island as in Scotland, because their sharp faces made it easier for them than for other livestock to reach the grass between the rocks in favored pasture land. Much of Rhode Island forest land was too rocky to tempt clearing for planting. While the best Rhode Island soil lies in a broad zone that extends from Tiverton and Little Compton westward across Rhode Island and Conanicut and Washington County to Connecticut, the light, sandy soil in parts of other counties may be cultivated with reasonable profit, and most of the state is suitable for orcharding, poultry and dairy farming. With other New England states, Rhode Island has "abandoned" farms and other farms that are not profitable as conducted.
Farming and the life of the farmer both suffered in competition with industry and the life of the wage-earner in factory occupations. The movement from the farm to the com- mercial centre first, and to the factory centre in later development, is almost as old as the colony. Perhaps it was forecasted in that early migration which depleted the purely agricul- tural settlement at Pocasset, when Coddington, Clarke, Easton and others, having discovered the remarkable harbor at Newport, withdrew from the farming end of Rhode Island to what was destined to be the metropolitan town of colonial days. Newport fathers encouraged their sons to take to the sea; the diversity of town and country interests was sufficient to bring about the partition of Newport into a compact commercial town retaining the historic name, and a rural settlement to which, because of its location, the name of Middletown was given. When factories were established the lure of steady wages paid in money; of short hours of labor, relatively; of long hours of freedom for pursuit of happiness in leisure, recreation or pleasure; of relief from the responsibility that rests upon the farmer as an entrepreneur ; of the comforts of village life approaching urban conditions, was far too strong to be resisted. Moreover, out of the development of railroads, the centre of food production tended to move steadily westward, and Rhode Island farmers faced competition in staple lines that was over- whelming. Agriculture has yielded to industry, and in Rhode Island enrolls not quite five per cent. of the working population.
EARLY WEALTH FROM SOIL-In spite of all that followed later, this fact remains: The earliest wealth in Rhode Island was wrested from the soil. The farmers of Rhode Island produced the surplus of butter, cheese, salted provisions, hides and leather, and also the horses that filled the holds and covered the decks of the earliest vessels that fared south from Narra- gansett Bay to the West Indies, opening the first profitable trade route. The farmers also produced the wool that bulked large in cargoes for shipment to England in exchange for the goods imported from the mother country. Enterprising farmers, developing large estates and using intensive methods in cultivating the virgin soil, became the grandees who dominated the social and political life of Newport and old Narragansett. With the introduction of slave labor estates became larger, and crops also increased in volume, piling the wharves and docks with cargoes for export. Before the Revolution South County planters had developed the Narragansett pacer, a famous breed of horses, very popular in the West Indies.
The Narragansett pacer was distinguished for his gait; "his backbone moved through the air in a straight line, without inclining the rider from side to side as the common rackers or pacers of the present day." Like the mustang pony, the Narragansett pacer was powerful and remarkable for endurance, though small in size. The pacer could travel 100 miles per day if properly cared for. The commercial life which developed in the colonial period could not have been, had Rhode Island produced nothing to sell, for there was not in America at the time a population which would have supported a new world Venice, trading almost exclu- sively in the goods produced by other people and profiting from the sales. The Rhode Island farmer also raised the food for teeming towns and for provisioning trading vessels. The
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actual dependence of the compact towns upon the farming population was demonstrated effectively in the period following the Revolution and preceding ratification of the Constitu- tion, when the farmers by withholding regular supplies of food reduced Providence to the verge of starvation. The northern town had outgrown many years before the possibility of support through food produced within its boundaries; it needed the constant flow of food from farms over an area extending as the town population grew. It was realization of this that induced John Brown to plan the Blackstone Canal as a means whereby to tap the agricul- tural resources of central western Massachusetts, and with vision remarkable for the time but characteristic of the man, to look beyond the valley of the Blackstone to the upper valley of the Connecticut as a source for food supply for the Rhode Island town. The interior water- way projected by John Brown would have made it possible to transport by water barges from the Connecticut River above Springfield to tidewater at Providence the wealth of agricultural produce that would be needed were the Rhode Island town to become the commercial and manufacturing metropolis anticipated. Then came the railroad, the opening up of lands fur- ther west, the flood of meat and grain from trans-Appalachian farms, and less and less of dependence by the town of Providence upon the rest of the state for food. The wealth that must have attended farming, had Rhode Island's manufacturing towns grown and the intro- duction of the steam railway been delayed even half a century, had vanished. The nature of Rhode Island farming was completely changed, when the Golden West began to deluge the East with grain and forage crops.
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS -- Tested by the dominating factors in economic life, Rhode Island has been successively (1) a farming and fishing commonwealth; (2) a commercial centre for the North Atlantic seaboard, and (3) perhaps the most intensively manufacturing community in the world. The wealth of fishery which the Charter emphasized never was realized, although fishing has continued to be a very important and profitable industry through three centuries. The Charter expressly provided that the grants therein "shall not in any manner hinder any of our loving subjects whatsoever from using and exercising the trade of fishing upon the coast of New England in America; but that they , shall have full and free power and liberty to continue and use the trade of fishing . . . and to build such wharves, stages and workhouses as shall be necessary for the salting, drying and keeping . and further . . . . it shall be lawful for them, or any of them, having of their fish ;
struck whale, dubertus, or other great fish, it or them to pursue. . . If any of the inhabi-
tants .... do set upon the planting of vineyards (the soil and climate both seeming naturally to concur to the production of wines), or be industrious in the discovery of fishing banks we will, from time to time, give and allow all due and fitting encouragement therein. The picture would fit the coast of northern New England, particularly Maine, in which fishing settlements antedated the Pilgrim landing at Plymouth. The effects of ocean currents on climate, agriculture, fishery and forestry were not well understood in 1663. The long, projecting arm of Cape Cod marks a general boundary between northern and southern waters, protecting Rhode Island from Arctic currents. Narragansett Bay faces waters warmed by contact with the Gulf Stream, over which blow southerly winds impregnated with the breath of the tropics. The general effects (1) on climate appear in milder winters as com- pared with northern New England; (2) on forestry, in the variety of Rhode Island trees and shrubs, which include those indigenous to New England, as well as others which attain their most northern habitat in Rhode Island; (3) on agriculture, in conditions of temperature and rainfall that favor certain crops, and (4) on fishery, in habitat of fish and accessibility of fishing grounds. Cape Cod and the dangerous coastal waters between it and the Seaconnet River tended to exclude Rhode Island fishermen from the cod, haddock, halibut and pollock fishery which has been so attractive to Gloucester. Fish there was in plenty in Rhode Island
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territorial waters, and both salted and smoked fish were exported to the West Indies; but the latter wished other things that Rhode Island produced, mostly on farms, besides lumber from the woodlands. The consequence was that agriculture took precedence over fishing, as trade developed ; and fishermen tended to become carriers of trade and commerce while peace pre- vailed, and sea fighters on armed public vessels or privateers during colonial wars. The manu- facture of wine in quantity for export did not follow the prediction in the Charter; the exigen- cies of trade with the West Indies led to the building of distilleries for the production of rum from molasses. Likewise the West Indian trade determined the early emphasis in Rhode Island on animal husbandry.
The successive eras of farming, commerce and manufacturing in Rhode Island were not distinct and separate ; the preceding projected itself into the following era, and the following was developing in and out of the preceding. Thus the commercial era was forecasted as the West Indian trade modified the nature of Rhode Island agriculture, and the manufacturing of rum in the commercial era presaged the intensive development of factories in the nineteenth century. The West Indian trade was undertaken in the first instance in the search for markets for a surplus of farm produce; once the economic wants of the West Indies were found to correspond reasonably with Rhode Island's ability to produce a surplus, the direction of pro- duction was determined. The trade proved to be so profitable that it was developed further, no so much as a market for surplus production, as because of and for itself and the profit thereof. Production was then directed to supplying what was wanted in the West Indies. Rhode Island found that the West Indies had a surplus product, and a venturesome trader brought home a cargo of molasses and realized a handsome profit after he had distilled it and manufactured rum for sale at home and abroad. The agricultural needs of the West Indies pointed to animal husbandry as the most profitable type of agriculture for Rhode Island. Ani- mal husbandry necessitates forage crops or the importation of forage. Rhode Island for a time raised the hay and grain required for feeding horses, dairy and beef cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry, additional to the food to support an increasing population and to provision ships. The soil and climate were favorable to forage crops, and Rhode Island farmers were pros- perous, particularly because they were not far removed from markets. Eventually, even in the colonial period, Rhode Island depended for part of its food and forage supplies on nearby sec- tions of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and Long Island.
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