Ranger Walkabout: Wonders of Whitinsville

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Yesterday, June 22, at 6:30 p.m., I joined rangers from Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park during their walkabout “Wonders of Whitinsville”, an hour-long tour of the mill village with an overview of the Whitin family and local industrial history. Part of the material overlapped with the Whitinsville Self-Guided Tour available on the National Park Service website, but the three rangers leading the tour provided plenty of additional information about the number of textile looms in the mill buildings, family dynamics, and the relationship between mill owners and mill workers.

View of Whitinsville from the pavilion at Open Sky Community services, from left to right are the Town Hall, Whitinsville Bank, Congregational Church, Cotton Mill, and the Brick Mill

The tour began on the patio of the Whitin Mill complex, now operated by Open Sky Community Services. (This site also hosted World War II Comes to the Valley 2022 in August and Blackstone Valley Mill Explorations in December 2022.) Across the street from the mill stands the Colonel James Fletcher Homestead, a Georgian style house built by James Fletcher in 1770 and now the home of the Northbridge Historical Society. Two years later, in 1772, Fletcher built a still-standing blacksmith forge. Fletcher’s daughter, Elizabeth “Betsey” Fletcher, married Colonel Paul Whitin, and the family built a mill dynasty together. Their first mills were fairly small and held around 200 looms. When Fletcher retired in 1826, Paul Sr. and his two oldest sons, Paul Jr. and John Crane, built the still-standing brick mill next to the blacksmith forge, and the new building held up to 2,000 looms. Sadly, Paul Sr. died only five years later in 1831.

Pavilion at Open Sky Community Services; red brick factory buildings on the left and in front with gray pavers on the ground The Brick Mill and the Blacksmith Shop in Whitinsville; across a small bridge is a small wooden building on the right and a three-story red brick building with a cupola on the left.

The tour continued across the street at the Granite Cotton Mill. (During Week 7 of Parked at Home 2023, park rangers highlighted this mill as a place of protest where mill workers cut the ropes connected to the bell in the bell tower.) The Whitins constructed this building in 1845, and it held up to 7,500 textile looms. By then, two younger brothers, Charles Pinckney Whitin and James Fletcher Whitin (named for his grandfather), had entered the Whitin family business. Betsey Whitin was both loving mother and savvy business woman, so she did not want her children to fight over the business after she died. She divided the mills between the four sons running the business, with Paul Jr. receiving the Rockdale Mill (now outlets selling rugs and curtains) and Riverdale Mill (still a mill), John Crane receiving Whitin Machine Works in Whitinsville, Charles receiving the Cotton Mill in Whitinsville (now apartments), and James receiving the Crown & Eagle in North Uxbridge (now apartments). John Crane was definitely mom’s favorite, likely because he invented a cotton picker machine back in 1831.

Whitinsville Cotton Mill; a blonde brick, four story building with a red shingled roof and a tall cupola.

The Fletcher-Whitin family provided many amenities to the people in their village, and the next four stops reflected their generosity. John Crane and Charles constructed Town Hall in 1876 on the site of their childhood home, and the building retains this purpose today. When Sarah Fletcher, the younger sister of Betsey Fletcher Whitin, died in 1840, she bequeathed $100 to found a library, a gift worth about $3,500 today. The library began in 1845 with subscriptions costing $1, worth about $40 today. Not to be outdone, Ezra Wood Fletcher (apparently named for his grandfather) bequeathed $500 to the library in 1860, a gift worth about $18,320 today. By 1876, the books relocated to the newly built Town Hall. Not until 1913 did the town receive the beautiful Whitinsville Social Library, still called “social” because of the original subscription fee, although it later became a standard public library. Two sons of Charles Whitin, Edward Whitin and Arthur Fletcher Whitin, funded the building and sold it to the town for $1.

Northbridge Town Hall; a red brick three story late Federalist style building with a dark brown painted overhang and matching columns by the double door entrance at the top of a short flight of stairs. Whitinsville Social Library; a gray stone single story building with a grand entrance and towering cupola. A crowd of people listen to the park ranger in front of the building.

Down the street, John Crane founded Whitinsville Savings Bank in 1872 and printed money for the town. The building now houses the Massachusetts State Police Museum. Several years later, G.M. Whitin, a son of Charles, dreamed of creating a community gymnasium but died unexpectedly in 1920 before this came to fruition. His four daughters — Elizabeth Klock Whitin Keeler, Elsa Whitin Mason, Katherine Leland Whitin Smith, and Lois Haven Whitin Crane — build Whitin Community Center in his honor across the road from the bank. “The Gym” was open to all people, regardless of age, gender, and race, at a time when the YMCA was still segregated, and was considered among the best training facilities in the area when it opened in 1923.

Whitinsville Bank; a crowd of people walk along the sidewalk next to a large red brick and light gray stone building made of several different sections. Gray concrete pillars mark the entrance to the building. The Original Section of the Whitinsville Community Center; a two story red brick building at the top of long concrete stairs. Matching white doors stand on either side of a gray stone panel engraved with the story about the founding of the community center.

Not to be forgotten was our final stop, Whitin Machine Works or “The Shop” as it is still called by locals. Constructed in 1847 along the Mumford River, this enormous three-story mill was continually expanded until the 1920s, creating a building with 1.75 million feet of floor space, including a machine shop and foundry, which allowed the Whitins to produce textile machinery in-house. Publications like The Spindle magazine and A Trip Through Whitin Machine Works kept workers, residents, and visitors informed about the happenings of the business.

Whitin Machine Works; a park ranger stands on a lawn across the street from a massive three-story red brick building which stretches across the entire picture.

I was amazed by the turnout for this quick and fun ranger-led walk, as the tour included about fifty people and two dogs. The loop was fairly easy to walk despite four street crossings thanks to crosswalks, stoplights, and a park ranger directing traffic. The sidewalk was eroded in places, and some people with mobility impairments had difficulty navigating the stairs near The Gym. The rangers wore small headsets with speaker attachments to amplify their voices, but traffic occasionally drowned out their words. Despite these issues, I would gladly take another walking tour of Whitinsville and look forward to more local events in the future.


Abby Epplett’s Rating System

Experience: 8/10

Accessibility: 7/10



Location: Whitinsville, Northbridge, MA, USA