Revolution, Rhode Island style

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(This story ran in the Boston Globe Travel section)

PAWTUCKET, R.I. – The American Revolution against England was a battle in which much blood was shed.

The American Industrial Revolution, begun here at Slater Mill on the banks of the mighty Blackstone River in 1793, had its own blood lost in the pursuit of mechanized freedom. The belts, wheels and cogs, unfettered by federal regulations in the late 18^th century, would sometimes lop off fingers, break arms and legs, or occasionally fatally crush a child who’d been sent into whirring machinery to clean or fix things.

It is all part of the rich, literal fabric of American technological history at this site where English expat Samuel Slater created water-powered textile machinery that revolutionized the way the new America made things.

This National Historic Landmark is one of the state’s most popular tourist destinations, with some 40,000 visits a year by people from 150 countries, including school groups that in spring number 100 or more children a day.

This area was once clogged with mills, and while many remain that have been converted to office or residential space, the Slater Mill complex is three buildings on five and a half acres in the center of the state’s fourth-largest city. Costumed interpreters take groups through the buildings imparting their history, and private tours are available.

In the main building is mostly replica machinery showing how cotton is spun from raw materials coming to the mill in tightly compressed 500-pound bales. Wispy, cloud-like cotton is carded and spun and woven into tight, strong strands that are fed into clattering machinery whipping it all onto bobbins, machinery that when jammed meant sending someone small enough into it to fix – a child. Quickness was a virtue to avoid getting caught in heavy sliding parts.

Upstairs is the Jencks Education Center which includes the Community Guild Studios, begun in November 2008. It is Rhode Island’s first fiber-arts center, said Steven Chandler, development and marketing manager, offering a wide range of classes and programs, including chair caning, basket making, weaving, spinning and quilting. Local groups use it for meeting space, including the Industrial Revolution Quilt Guild.

In the stone Wilkinson Mill is a replica waterwheel, a 16,000-pound wooden behemoth that was the backbone of any water-powered mill – and where ghosts have been sighted. Ghost tours are held at Slater Mill, and The Atlantic Paranormal Society last year aired an episode of its popular “Ghost Hunters” TV show that was filmed here.

The wheel powers a hub that feeds upstairs to the Slater Mill machine shop, where drills, lathes and sanders are powered by a series of heavy leather belts on pulleys, another source of lost fingers and broken bones back in the day. In one portion of this area is the “Apprentice Alcove,” where children – quite safely – can operate their own mini-machines.

Also at Slater Mill is the Sylvanus Brown House, an original late 18^th-century house with sparse furnishings in chilly rooms and a small garden in back. It is an original building that had been moved here from elsewhere in Pawtucket for preservation.

While visitors may be from far-flung places, many are locals who have never been here or had been ages ago.

“Those are two common responses from people visiting,” said Andrian Paquette, curator. “They either grew up near here and never saw Slater Mill, or haven’t been since they came with their second-grade class. We’re targeting those folks to get them to visit for the first time, or again.”

Slater Mill

67 Roosevelt Ave.

Pawtucket, R.I.

Open weekends March and April, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; May through October, Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; tickets $8-$10.

401-725-8638

www.Slatermill.org