Blackstone River - History

History

The river is named after William Blackstone (original spelling William Blaxton) who arrived in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1623, and became the first settler of present day Boston in 1625. He relocated again, to Rhode Island in 1635 and built his home on the river, in what would become Cumberland. With the Providence River, the Blackstone was the northeastern border of Dutch claims for New Netherland from Adriaen Block's charting of Narragansett Bay in 1614 through the Hartford Treaty of 1650.

The original native American name for the river was the "Kittacuck", which meant "the great tidal river". The "Kittacuck", or Blackstone, was plentiful with Salmon and Lamprey in pre-colonial and colonial times.

In 1790, Samuel Slater opened the first successful water powered cotton mill in America, Slater Mill, at Pawtucket Falls. This mill was powered by the waters of the Blackstone River. Many other mills appeared along the Blackstone River over time, giving the river the nickname "America's hardest working river." The industrialization also lead to the river being identified by the end of the 20th century as the primary source of Narragansett Bay pollution.

In August 1955, severe flooding on the Blackstone caused extensive damage to Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Where the river is usually 70 feet (21 m) wide it swelled to over 1 mile (1.6 km) wide. The flooding of the Blackstone was the result of a succession of dam breaks and was caused by rainfall from Hurricane Connie followed a week later by Hurricane Diane, which together deposited over 20 inches (510 mm) of rain in parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The Blackstone river reached a stage of 21.8 feet (6.6 m) in Woonsocket, which remains the flood of record; flood stage is 9.0 feet (2.7 m).

The river, together with the Woonasquatucket River to the south, was designated an American Heritage River in 1998.