William H. Haskell Manufacturing Plant

About this Property

#Redevelopment

In December 2015, business partners Jeremy Duffy and Devin Kelly bought the 130,000-square-foot industrial complex at 461 Main St. for $1.25 million.¹ Their plan was to create a food and beverage campus centered around a cooperative craft beer brewing facility. Narragansett Beer would later become an anchor tenant and investor and begin to brew their own lagers here.

The project was financed with a variety of federal and local sources. Private investment includes a $350,000 loan from the seller of the former Kellaway Center and a $2.4-million equity contribution from investors, including Duffy and Kelly, who pledged their personal residences. Duffy is a former executive at advertising and marketing firm Duffy & Shanley. Kelly is the former president of Laser Performance in Portsmouth, maker of Laser and Sunfish sailboats.²

The two might seem like strange bedfellows, but they have made the investment work. Duffy’s advertising firm was instrumental in marketing the return of Narragansett starting back in 2004 or so. And Kelly had some previous food and beverage experience to lean on.

The concept is a brilliant one. It is expensive for small craft brewers to produce interesting and ever-changing flavors at scale. The Isle Brewers Guild provides the facility, including fermentation tanks and canning equipment. There is a retail space that provides tastings and local pick-up. A total of nine breweries work within the Guild producing a wide range of styles and tastes.

#Current Events

The Guild Pawtucket is a brewery and beer hall with event space and rental units for small businesses. It is one of the locations of The Guild RI.

#History

• Photos from the Pawtucket Library Collection on Flickr
• 1898 Catalog for the Wm. H. Haskell Company care of the Internet Archive and the Building Technology Heritage Library

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From the Church Hill Industrial District nomination form, 1982

The William H. Haskell Manufacturing Plant is a red brick industrial complex constructed on three-quarters of a city block, roughly in a C-shape surrounding a small millyard on Main Street. A plain iron fence runs along the south side of the complex and closes the yard.

3-1 A tiny, 1-story, gable-roofed brick structure located at the center of the complex and at the northwest corner of the mill yard, this structure is a remnant of the shop James Brown operated on this site in the l840s. The windows of the structure are set under segmental arches, but the sash has been replaced in all but the gable window. c. 1845 Photo #5

3-2 A 2 1⁄2-story, brick building, 162 X 40, the first Haskell factory has a gable roof, except at the south end where a mansard with heavy brackets has been added. 1860 Photo #6

3-3 A large, 1- and 2-story brick building, extending the length of Commerce and Bayley Streets, this structure has a gable roof on its Bayley Street side, and a flat roof on its Commerce Street side. The paired windows have double-hung, 6-over-6 sash and are set between brick piers. Large, freight doors open into the mill yard. 1885 Photo #8

3-4 A large, 2-story mill, set at the southwest corner of the plant and constructed of reinforced concrete and brick, this factory has a flat roof and a heavy, molded cornice. Most of its standard factory windows are now boarded over.

[…]

Like the Brown shop, the origins of the Haskell Manufacturing Company reach back to Pawtucket’s industrial beginnings. It is today the nation’s oldest continually operating bolt nd cold-punched but producer. The Haskell Company developed from the small shop started by Stephen Jenks at the Pawtucket Falls; Jenks was making bolts by 1820 and he was the first in Pawtucket to cold-punch from bar iron.

The Jenks shop was acquired in 1835 by Tinkham, Haskell, and Company (Harvey Tinkham had been a partner to Joseph Jenks, Stephen’s son) and in 1836 William H. Haskell purchased the company. In 1860 Haskell moved his operation to Church Hill and began construction on a site purchased from James Brown whose machine shop was located just west of the Haskell plant. From 1860 to present the Haskell Company has continued to manufacture machine parts at the Church Hill site.

From 1860 to 1920 the Haskell Company built the moderate-sized complex located on Main, Commerce, and Bayley Streets. The 1860 mill is a long, 2-story brick building which incorporates on its east side a small, 1-story section of James Brown’s pre-1848 plant [no longer extant]. In a major expansion of the 1880s, Haskell added a large 1- and 2-story section running along Commerce and Bayley Streets.And in 1920, a 2-story structure of reinforced concrete was completed on the southwest corner of the site.

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From “RHODE ISLAND: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites”, Gary Kulik and Julia C. Bonham, 1978

WILLIAM HASKELL MANUFACTURING COMPANY — The Haskell Manufacturing Company, the oldest continually operating bolt and cold-punched nut-plant in the United developed from a small shop started by Stephen Jenks at Pawtucket Falls. Jenks began making bolts about 1820 and was the first artisan in Pawtucket to introduce cold-punching from bar iron. In 1835, Tinkham, Haskell, and Company bought the business and sold it one year later to W. H. Haskell. Haskell moved to the current site about 1860, at approximately the same time that James Brown was building his adjoining machine shop. A 2-story, brick building, 162’. X 40’, survives from that period. The mansard roof over the South-end was added later. The building now ‘contains patternS for bolt and nut machinery of Haskell’s own manufacture.

The large 2-story, brick building extending along Commerce and Bayley Streets was built in 1885 and continues to be used for production. Operating machinery includes a row of c. 1912 double-tool-post shavers; built by the Pawtucket Manufacturing Company; a 15-inch universal shaper 1916, built by Potter Johnson of Pawtucket; and a 1⁄2-inch-lag screw, gimlet pointer 1918, built by National Machine of Tiffin, Ohio. The forge room, located on the Bayley Street side of the building, contains a 7/8-inch hammer-heading forging machine 1917, built by the Pawtucket Manufacturing Company. The company also has a battery of Brown Sharpe screw machines.

Other machinery, from the 1930s, includes Landis threading machines; stamping presses and shearing presses built by Haskell; and Waterbury-Farrel single die, double stroke, cold headers. The latest machines are located in a 1920 concrete and brick building on the southwest edge of the site. With its long and distinguished history, and its continued use of early 20th-century machinery, the Haskell Manufacturing Company is one of the most important operating industrial sites in the state.

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Maps

• 1884 Sanborn Map, City of Pawtucket, Volume 1, Plate 6 (page 6) — Buildings labelled “W.H. Haskell. Bolt Fac.” The plots boundaries are trapezoidal in shape and is in the middle of a block bounded by Pine Street to the west, Main Street to the south, Bailey Street to the east, and Providence and Worcester Railroad to the north. The southern-most building is a red/pink brick upside down L shape containing an office, stamping and packing on the 1st floor; a machine shop on the 2nd; and a pattern shop on the 3rd. A much larger but single story wooden structure is on the northern side which is labelled as “Forging & Nail Cutting” with “Iron & Steel Storage.”
• 1890 Sanborn Insurance Map, Volume 1, Plate 17 (page 17) — Corner of Bailey, now Commerce, and Main Streets. Many of the former building are in this map, with only a few of the current ones. The pink brick section labeled “W. M. Haskell Comp’y” is still extant, while the wooden structures in yellow are now gone.
• 1902 Sanborn Map, City of Pawtucket, Volume 1, Plate 6 (page 10) — Buildings are labelled “W.H. Haskell M’fg Co. — Bolt and Nail Factory.” The wood-frame building to the north has expanded slightly since 1884 and has the western wall faced with brick.
• 1923–1962 Sanborn Map, City of Pawtucket, Volume 1, Plate 16 (Flickr) — Buildings are unlabelled with a company name but are in much the same configuration as present day. Part of the Pawtucket Library collection.

#In the News

Hi Neighbor! ’Gansett returns to R.I. - Brewery setting up craft-beer operations in Pawtucket

by Gail Ciampa
Providence Journal | April 3, 2016 (abridged)

In 2009, the Narragansett Brewing ad campaign “Drink Your Part” promised Rhode Islanders that if they bought the beer, the company would brew it here.

Again.

They are making good on that pledge, having leased a new home in Pawtucket for brewing operations at the Kellaway Center, now known as The Guild.

“It is with great pride that we announce that ’Gansett is finally coming home,” said Mark Hellendrung, president of Narragansett Beer.

In December, business partners Jeremy Duffy and Devin Kelly bought the 130,000-square-foot industrial complex at 461 Main St. for $1.25 million to create a brewery.

“We are an investor and a tenant,” Hellendrung said on Monday. […]

The brew-house equipment and cellar for aging are being fabricated in Oregon and will be brought to Rhode Island this summer for installation, Kelly said. They will be able to package 250 cans per minute onsite.

Making beer in the 100-barrel brewery could commence in August. The first beer to be brewed will be Narragansett Fest, a seasonal Octoberfest, said Hellendrung. (By comparison, Rhode Island’s current microbreweries operate in the range of 10 to 12 barrels per batch.) […]

The plan is to make Rhode Island the brewing home of the small-batch craft beers, like Fest and the Lovecraft series, which pays homage to Providence horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. The formerly limited-edition Porter will also return in the rotation of brews made in Pawtucket. These beers will be distributed in Rhode Island, nearby Connecticut and Southeastern Massachusetts, Hellendrung said.

They will be producing kegs as well as cans, and Hellendrung expects to have 20 employees making the beer. Expected production in Pawtucket during the first year will be 10,000 to 15,000 barrels, he said.

“When we were developing this concept, we had the idea to create a campus,” said Duffy. They have plans for events, food samplings and educational opportunities, and that news will come later. Several months will be spent restoring the building.

At the very heart of it, the brewery will have those tap rooms for sampling, said Kelly.

“People will get to experience beer at its freshest form,” he said.

Narragansett Lager, the flagship of the brand, will continue to be brewed at North American Breweries in Rochester, New York. That is a 4,000-barrel brewery whose size can handle the wider distribution of the beer, Hellendrung said.

Narragansett Lager has become a hipster sensation in the last year, and its appeal extends far beyond Rhode Island, now reaching 15 other states.

In sales, “we’ve grown from virtually nothing to New England’s fifth largest — and the country’s 37th largest — brewer,” said Hellendrung.

Narragansett was last brewed in Rhode Island by Falstaff for four months in 1983 after the brewery shut down in 1981.

Hellendrung revived the brand, even recovering the original recipe, 11 years ago and has been building up to this moment. He didn’t want to rush to build and commit to too small a brewery and limit growth.

At the same time, Rhode Island has seen many craft brewers ferment a growing industry.

Mike Reppucci founded his Sons of Liberty distillery in South Kingstown four years ago and will soon expand into beer brewing. He said the return of local brewing for Narragansett will help everyone.

“They are such great guys and the best at brand building and marketing,” he said. “The only knock on them, and I don’t agree with it, has been they don’t brew it here. I’m so happy to see they can put that to rest.”

As he packed his office to move, Hellendrung recounted the history of Narrangansett and got choked up a few times.

He said there are “stacks of memorabilia, documents, and photos all waiting to be sorted, packed, and with a little luck, shared again. Artifacts from the original Narragansett brewery in Cranston to napkins with decade-old ideas scratched onto them — everything seems to come with a story.”

Now there will be a new chapter.

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Ciampa, Gail. “Business Hi Neighbor! ’Gansett returns to R.I. - Brewery setting up craft-beer operations in Pawtucket.” Providence Journal (RI), sec. RI News, 3 Apr. 2016, p. 1. NewsBank: America’s News, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=NewsBank&req_dat=D4BD6B42F1AB4706B5E1244D477DEE03&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews/15C05242C0D87228. Accessed 27 Dec. 2023.