The history of Peace Dale clearly revolves around one famous family, the Hazards. Here is their story and the story of Peace Dale, as taken from the 1984 National Register for Historic Places nomination form titled "Historic and Architectural Resources of South Kingstown - a Preliminary Report."
During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, South Kingstown and much of Washington County were dominated by a small group of families owning large plantations devoted to commercial agriculture that was export through nearby Newport. Among these "Narragansett Planters," the Quaker Hazards were the largest and most powerful clan.
In the late eighteenth century, Rowland Hazard I left Rhode Island to establish himself in the shipping business in Charleston, South Carolina. There he married Mary Peace, for whom Peace Dale was later named. In the 1790s, war in Europe played havoc with American maritime commerce, and in 1799, Rowland Hazard returned to South Kingstown with his wife.
In 1804, he purchased a 1/3 interest in a small wool-carding mill at a water power privilege on the Saugatucket River. During the next few years, his involvement in the business grew. He began putting out his carded wool to be spun in area homes, then taking the yarn produced and putting it out to be hand-woven into cloth by local weavers. Hazard purchased the mill privilege outright in 1812, and invested in experimental machinery including primitive power looms. By 1815, he ran a small, fully integrated manufacturing operation, going from raw material to finished goods. It is said to have been one of the first such textile plants in America.
Thus began Peace Dale, a mill village created by over four generations of the Hazard family. Named by the founder of the family woolens business, Rowland Hazard I, for his wife Mary Peace, Peace Dale bespeaks what was sought -- a community living in sweet harmony with itself.
In every sense, Peace Dale's prominence focuses on the mills and the adjacent facilities that were developed by the Hazards for commerce, recreation, education, relaxation, and worship. The Hazards' accomplishments as industrialists, both in terms of innovation and success, were matched by a dedication to an improved social order and the munificence of their philanthropy. Along with the sobriety, unity, and air of elevated amenity encountered in their village, the Hazards --Friends into the mid-nineteenth century, had about them a seriousness, ambition, and commitment that reflected Quaker attitudes.
During these early years, Peace Dale remained very small. In the early 1820s there were only 30 inhabitants, the wood-frame mill buildings, five dwellings, and a store. The mills had been taken on by Rowland Hazard's sons, Isaac P. and Rowland G. Hazard. By the end of the decade they had the operation fully mechanized, producing coarse kersey cloth and linsey woolsey. Little new development occurred until the Hazard mills burned in the mid-1840s. The brothers decided to begin anew. They rebuilt their hydropower systems to increase production capacity and in 1847 completed a fireproof stone factory with distinctive stepped gable and double-monitor roof. They incorporated the Peace Dale Manufacturing Company in 1848, and in 1849, started to produce woolen shawls in place of the cheap yards goods of former days. Peace Dale shawls gained a considerable reputation. From this period on, the company specialized in high quality products. Isaac P. Hazard served as company president until 1864. He took an interest in politics and repeatedly represented South Kingstown in the state General Assembly. Rowland G. not only helped operate the family textile business, he assumed a role in local and national affairs, and pursued broader moral and philosophical topics. He wrote extensively. His "Essay on Language" (1834) was highly regarded. While traveling in England, he met and befriended John Stuart Mill. He was staunchly opposed to slavery, helped found the Republican Party in furtherance of abolition, and in 1860 participated in the party convention that nominated Lincoln. During the Civil War, though a pacifist, he promoted the Union cause through published essays, bolstering Northern financial credit abroad. On a local level, Rowland G. built village schools and the South Kingstown Town Hall. He underwrote a library society and later published an essay on "The Duty of Individuals to Support Science and Literature" (1885).
Rowland G. Hazard's sons, John N. and Rowland Hazard II, ran the Peace Dale Mills in the late nineteenth century. It was the latter who had the greatest impact on development of the village. As a junior member of the firm in 1856, he designed a new stone waving mill and a stone building across from the mills to house offices, a store, the post office, and a pubic hall. Over the next four decades, as amateur architect and/or client, he saw to the building of over half the extant physical fabric of Peace Dale.
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