Lippitt Mill

The Lippitt Mill is an historic mill at 825 Main Street in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

History

The cotton textile mill was built in 1809, making it the second oldest in Rhode Island after Slater Mill. The Lippitt Manufacturing Company was founded by Revolutionary War officer, Col. Christopher Lippitt, his brother Charles Lippitt, and Benjamin Aborn, George Jackson, Amasa Mason, and William Mason. During the Depression following of War of 1812 the Lippitt Manufacturing Company survived by supplying yarn to convict weavers in the Vermont prison. The company grew throughout the 19th century becoming a large profitable enterprise in which several generations of the Lippitt family were involved. In 1889 all of the Lippitt Company assets were sold to the firm of B.B. Knight & Robert Knight, founders of Fruit of the Loom. In 1925, B.B. Knight sold the Lippitt Mill property to Joseph Hayes, owner of the Riverpoint Lace Works. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The Hayes family stopped manufacturing lace here in the early 1970s, but they retained ownership of the property until it went into receivership in 2008. The mill continued operation until 2010, when spring flooding on the Pawtuxet River and a bad economy forced the mill to close.