NS marks its 150th anniversary with cake-cutting celebrations scattered throughout the town
NORTH SMITHFIELD — The town was supposed to celebrate its 150th anniversary this year with a big party made up of parades, special events and banquets – like those held for its 100th anniversary in 1971.
But that all changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distanced and virtual events were the order of the day this week as North Smithfield’s sesquicentennial finally arrived.
Local schools celebrated the milestone with special birthday cake-cutting events in their respective buildings, as did the town’s departments and employees on Wednesday.
The town council and the North Smithfield Parks & Recreation Department put on a socially distanced birthday cake party for town employees and officials in the new town hall building’s council chamber. The party also drew members of the North Smithfield Heritage Association to mark the town’s big day.
Kate Pasquariello, the Parks and Recreation Department’s director of programs, thanked members of the Parks & Recreation Commission for working on the cakes that helped school and town departments hold their individual sesquicentennial celebrations around the town.
Wright’s Dairy Farm donated a cake for the town council’s celebration Wednesday evening. The cake’s candles were put out by Town Council member Claire O’Hara, who waived a paper plate in another safety precaution as the event was broadcast on the Parks & Recreation Department’s Facebook page.
North Smithfield Heritage Association President Richard F. Keene gave an overview of town history and how North Smithfield, once part of a larger town of Smithfield, became the community people know today.
“This is a very special event – 150 years, 1871 to 2021. It’s not an insignificant amount of time; it covers a lot of history,” Keene said, while thanking local officials and town residents for
supporting the sesquicentennial celebration and acknowledging local efforts to preserve the town’s history and the important natural and cultural highlights that can still be found today.
Keene explained that what is now North Smithfield had once been home to Native people long before European settlers arrived in New England.
“Archaeological evidence has proven that Native people lived here and flourished 3,000 or 4,000 years ago – or longer,” Keene noted. “That is really special.”
The town still uses Native names for places today, Keene said. These include names like Nipsachuck, an area in the southwestern part of the town, and Woonsocket Hill, one of its notable high points.
Roger Williams would show up in what was to be Rhode Island in 1636 after he was chased out of Plymouth Colony for his views on religious freedom and founded Providence Plantations on land he purchased from the Narragansett tribe, Keene noted.
Providence Plantations would continue to grow and by 1666 Edward Inman and John Mowry were able to make a purchase of 2,000 acres of land from William Minnian, a Native American associated with King Philip, in the area that is now North Smithfield, Lincoln and Smithfield.
King Philip, or Metacomet sachem of the Wampanoag, would fight one of the early battles of the King Philip’s War of 1675 and 1676 in the Nipsachuck area and narrowly escape the colonial forces his band of warriors encountered there.
After the war ended with King Philip’s death, Providence resumed its growth. By the early 1700s, it had become too large to manage properly, according to Keene.
“So in 1731, Providence was divided into four towns: Providence, Smithfield, Scituate and Glocester, and those communities continued to thrive and to grow,” Keene said.
Union Village, today’s residential area beginning at the South Main
Street intersection with Smithfield Road and Great Road, would become one of the most prominent villages and business centers in the town of Smithfield, Keene noted.
“In 1806, John Slater showed up and bought this property right here in Slatersville,” Keene said. “It was bought for mills, and in 1807 he had built the largest, at the time, industrial mill in the country.”
Slater also built his home next to the village church, along with two houses for his workers and the company store. It was the beginning of what would become the first planned mill village in the nation, Slatersville, Keene explained.
The mill villages of Branch Village, Forestdale, Waterford, and many, many more would follow in the area.
Smithfield, which also held the villages of Albion, Manville, Lonsdale, and Saylesville all along the Blackstone River, would eventually become too large of a town to manage, just as had been the case with Providence.
“And so in 1869, the state legislature started to study the problem, and by 1871 – nothing moved fast in those days – there was still no agreement,” Keene said. “But the freemen of the town of Smithfield met, and they agreed that they had to divide the town into three new towns and they were going to be Smithfield, Greenville and Slater.”
There is where it became a little complicated, according to Keene.
“On March 1, the act was passed by the legislature, creating the towns of Smithfield, Slater, and Lincoln. So apparently between the meeting of the freemen and the enactment of the act, there was quite a bit of dissension about the people in Smithfield being called Greenville,” Keene said. “I imagine the folks in Georgiaville and Esmond and other places didn’t think they should become Greenville.”
The towns of Slater, Lincoln and Smithfield were formed on March 8, he noted, but apparently “the people in North Smithfield, or Slater at the time, didn’t like the idea of making such a big deal about Mr. Slater, and two weeks later, on March 24, 150 years ago, the legislature amended the act and created the town of North Smithfield,” Keene said. “And at the same time, they annexed Globe Village to Woonsocket. And so, basically, those towns and communities still exist today.”
Noting the significance of the division 150 years ago, Keene pointed to North Smithfield as a community where people want to make their homes and prosper – just as the town’s early residents did.
“Since 1871, the town of North Smithfield has continued to thrive and to flourish despite the loss of the big manufacturing companies,” he said. “We’ve got arguably the best school district in the state. We’ve got wonderful open spaces, I just can’t say enough superlatives about the town.”
“It is a very attractive place where people want to come. And so you might ask, ‘What is the future going to bring?’And, really, that is up to us, and I am going to leave it at that,” Keene said as he wrapped up his sesquicentennial remarks. “That is the challenge ahead of us and the folks that come after us.”