The New Mill & New Beginnings

The New Mill and New Beginnings. Lafayette. , After Robert Rodman returned from the eye-opening 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, he had a clear vision of how he was going to move forward and realize his dream of being competitive with the larger broadcloth mills to the north. He began construction of his new mill almost immediately, shuttling every brick, every bag of mortar and every piece of machinery for his new Lafayette Mill through the nearby Wickford Junction railyard. Eventually, the great Corliss Steam engine, the provider of his mill's lifeblood, passed through Wickford Junction too, on its way from the massive factory in Providence where it was created., When it was finished a little more than a year later, Rodman had a three-story factory that stood 316 feet long by 55 feet wide with two towers 51 and 70 feet high and a 92-foot-tall brick chimney. Immediately adjacent to it was the powerhouse building for the Corliss steam engine and just behind the main mill building was a large brick barn for the draft animals necessary to move coal, raw materials and finished goods on to and off the site. Also constructed in that same time frame was a large, brick warehouse at the edge of Ten Rod Road just east of the new mill, and a small brick office from which he would run the entire Rodman empire. The previously constructed dyehouse adjacent to the mill pond and the circa 1800 wooden mill building were also utilized for the manufacture of Rodman's new product lines, which focused on two fabrics. One was an upgraded version of the negro goods fabric he had been making before the Civil war, which he called Humboldt Doeskin Jean. The fabric as used for working men's clothing and was, in spirit, the predecessor to today's denim jean material. The second fabric was a better-quality, cotton-wool blended worsted fabric he called Merino Cassimere. Over the years, as demand and times changed, Rodman Manufacturing transitioned away from the denim product towards the manufacture of only woolen and wool blend fabrics., [Captions:] , This very early 20th century photograph shows the front of Rodman Manufacturing's Lafayette mill building. The twin towers were designed to be both functional and aesthetically imposing. Raw materials and finished goods were moved from floor to floor in the towers., The spinning department, seen here, and the adjacent carding and sorting areas were on the top floor of the mill. Bales of wood and cotton were haul up through the tower to this floor and bobbins full of yarn like those shown were created here and sent downstairs to the weaving floor., This production area, also on the top floor, was the location where the critical process of setting up warp beams occurred. The warp is the longitudinal yarns or threads in a woven piece of cloth. They need to be wound precisely on the warp beams, which can be seen here on the rocks to the left, without crossing each other or the looms will jam and production will halt. The yarns on a warp beam can be hundreds of feet long. This is some of the most critical work done in this or any mill., This late 19th century postcard image is a view looking westward down Ten Rod Road and was taken from a location very near to the present-day intersection with Queen Street. The construction, of the new mill building, just a couple of decades earlier than this not only changed the "skyline" of Lafayette village, but the entire fabric of the little community as well., The main weaving area on the middle floor of the mill housed these rows of looms. Finished warp beams are lined up on the floor in the center, ready to be set on a loom when needed., This image is another view of the same production line shown above. Finer woolen and worsted (a fabric with a cotton warp and woolen filling) broadcloths were woven here. Also quite apparent in this image is the arrangement of driveshafts and leather drive belts that powered all the equipment in the mill., This production line on the main weaving floor produced coarser, more durable fabrics with trade names Humboldt Doeskin Jean and Merino Cassimeres. These fabrics, which were used to make work and farm clothes, had their roots in the negro cloth beginnings of the South County textile industry and were the precursors to today's modern denim jeans.