In the 1850s, Harris Woolen Goods were known throughout the country for their high quality. Harris’ production was $275,000 a year, making him the wealthiest man in Woonsocket.
In the 1860s, Harris undertook his most ambitious project - construction of the Privilege Mill complex near North Main and Privilege Streets. When the vast complex was completed in 1865, the main mill was 5-stories tall, 442’ long, and built of brick, making it the largest woolen mill in the United States. The complex also included eighty tenements for worker housing on Farm, North Main and Winter Streets.
By the 1870s, the Harris Woolen Company operated six mills in Woonsocket and employed over 1,000 people. The company could produce 1,5 million yards of high-grade woolens and 150,000 yards of cotton a year. The annual revenue was over $3 million and the company owned over 300 acres of land and had over 200 buildings.
Beyond his success as an entrepreneur, Harris was a noted philanthropist and abolitionist. He provided a public water system, paved village streets and provided the land for a public high school and a cemetery. He also built Harris Block on Main Street, which included Harris Institute, Rhode Island’s first free public library and Harris Hall, a large public meeting hall. He was the first Rhode Islander to run for Governor as part of the Liberty Party (the period’s abolitionist party) and hosted Abraham Lincoln when the then presidential candidate came to speak at Harris Hall in March 1860.
After his death in 1872, Harris’ family began to sell land and business interests in pieces. By 1899, the Privlege Mill Complex, the last holding of the Harris Woolen Company, was sold to the Lawton Spinning Company. Lawton would prove to be the last large cotton mill in Woonsocket.
<i>Image courtesy of the Osher Map Library</i>
