The Knights build a model farm on East Avenue
When the B. B. & R. Knight Company acquired the mills and other
holdings of the A & W Sprague Manufacturing Company in the Natick
Area, they also obtained possession of the lovely 200 acre Sprague farm
on East Avenue.
Robert Knight’s humble beginnings
The man primarily responsible for developing the farm into one of the
most important cattle and horse breeding businesses in the state was
Robert Knight, one of the principal owners of the B. B. and R. Knight
Company. Robert Knight's story and success is very much like the
typical Horatio Alger success story. Knight, while not starting life in
rags, was certainly a poor farmer in the early part of the century and
became a millionaire by the end of the 19th century.
He had his beginnings on a small farm in 1826, and as a young man he
had worked for the Spragues in their Cranston Print Works and later at
the Harris Mill in Phenix. Dissatisfied with the low wages and long
hours as a minor clerk, Knight decided to better his material
prospects. By diligently saving part of his wages he was able to
advance his education. He attended the Pawcatuck Academy and for a
short time taught school in Exeter. Disillusioned in that profession,
he left to work as a clerk in John H. Clark's mill store at Arnold's
Bridge (later Pontiac) for $8 per month and board.
Opportunity knocks
Knight's opportunity to own his own business came when John Clark
decided to enter politics in 1850. Clark sold his mills to Robert
Knight and Zechariah Parker for $40,000. Within a short time, Robert
Knight contacted his brother, Benjamin Brayton Knight, a prosperous
flour and grain merchant, and offered him a partnership. Together the
Knights were able to buy Parker's share in the mill. The mill and
village, once called Arnold's Bridge and later Clarkesville, was
renamed Pontiac by the Knights.
Their success was phenomenal as they purchased many of the Sprague
mills and consolidated and expanded. By the time of the Columbian
Exposition of 1893, the firm was described as, "one corporation, the
largest in the world, renders its dozen villages musical with the hum
of 421,000 spindles and makes them beautiful by the happiness of more
than 7,000 operatives." During much of the nineteenth century, the
Knights were very prosperous as the brothers worked well together.
Benjamin Brayton Knight, with his keen business sense, attended to the
firm's finances while Robert Knight took care of the actual
manufacturing of cloth.
The Knight Farm’s prize livestock
This was the era of "paternalistic" mill villages in the Pawtuxet
Valley. The workers lived in tenements built for them by the owners,
paid rent to the company, and often shopped in the company stores for
food raised on the company farms. One of these farms was the one
located on East Avenue. Robert Knight's second major interest turned to
farming and developing superior livestock. When he saw the fine herd of
Holstein cattle owned by Emanuel Rose of Cranston, he bought the entire
herd and then gave Rose a lifetime job of caring for them. In time he
added purebred swine and horses, and became known as a leading breeder
of livestock.
Webster Knight
Knight's sons and grandson inherited his interests. His son, Webster
Knight (1854 1933), learned the textile industry and gradually assumed
control of B.B. & R. Knight Co. In 1881, he married Sarah W.
Lippitt, also of a leading manufacturing family in the Pawtuxet Valley,
and made his home in Warwick. Webster Knight felt that it was part of
his duty and destiny to take an active part in Warwick politics. Like
his ancestors, he sought to continue with the paternalistic role the
family had in controlling the lives of the citizens of Warwick. Before
his death, he learned that the time of paternalism had passed and so,
too, had the period of the passive voter.
The story of the Knight Farm on East Avenue will be continued.
O. P. Fuller in his 1875 History of Warwick used this drawing to show the Pontiac Mill in its early stages.