Smithfield, Rhode Island

• 1. Introduction

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  Smithfield, Rhode Island sits in Providence County with a population of 22,118 people, according to the 2020 census. Yet behind that quiet New England number lies a story that touches abolition, industrial transformation, the founding of Providence itself, and one of the most unusual land donations in American university history. How does a modest Rhode Island town become the birthplace of prominent abolitionists, the home of a four-year business university, and a place where the founder of Tupperware left his mark on higher education? The answers run deeper than the town's 71.9 square kilometers suggest.

• 2. Quakers and Abolition

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  Elizabeth Buffum Chace, born in Smithfield in 1806, spent her life fighting slavery, advocating for women's rights, and pushing prison reform. She was not alone. The Quaker community that gathered along Great Road, stretching from what is now Woonsocket north into Uxbridge, Massachusetts, made Smithfield a center of antislavery conviction through the early 18th century. Members like Effingham Capron and Abby Kelley Foster channeled that faith directly into the abolition movement. That same community seeded further Quaker settlements, including one at Adams, Massachusetts, where Susan B. Anthony was born as an early member of that congregation. Chief Justice Peleg Arnold, who would later serve as a delegate to the Continental Congress, lived in this early Smithfield, and the home he built in 1690 still stands today.

• 3. Colonial Roots and Founding

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  John Steere was among the British colonists who first settled the area in 1663, establishing a farming community on land that was then still within the boundaries of Providence. The separation came in February 1731, when the General Assembly incorporated Smithfield as its own municipality. The first town meeting followed on the 17th of March, 1731, held at the home of Captain Richard Whitman in what is now Lincoln. Richard Sayles became the first town clerk. John Arnold, Captain Joseph Mowry, Thomas Steere, John Mowry, Sam Aldrich, and Benjamin Smith joined the first town council. The town's official website traces the name itself to John Smith, one of the original six men who formed the settlement of Providence Plantations after receiving land from Roger Williams.

• 4. Mills and Water

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  By 1819, nine cotton mills operated along the Woonasquatucket River, a sign of how completely the Industrial Revolution had remade an agricultural town. The problem was water. Mills relied on consistent river flow, and supply fluctuated. The Woonasquatucket River Company was granted a charter to solve that problem, constructing three reservoirs in town: Slack Reservoir, Upper and Lower Sprague Reservoir, and Waterman Reservoir. The strategy worked. By 1876, the number of mills had risen to 20, more than doubling in roughly six decades. The town's growth eventually led to subdivision: in 1871, North Smithfield and Lincoln became separate municipalities, and Central Falls later split from Lincoln in 1895. Hanton City, a colonial ghost town, still lies within present-day Smithfield's boundaries.

• 5. Bryant University and Tupperware

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  In 1971, Bryant University relocated to its current campus in Smithfield after Earl Silas Tupper, the founder of Tupperware and a Bryant alumnus, donated 428 acres of land for the new site. The famous Bryant Archway moved with the university. The land Tupper donated had its own layered past: the old Emin Homestead and the Captain Joseph Mowry homestead had occupied much of it, farmed for three generations from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century. Descendants of the original Emin settlers still live near the campus, and the school offers a scholarship for accounting students in the family's honor. Historical photographs of the Emin Homestead remain on display in the Alumni house.

• 6. People Who Left a Mark

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  Sullivan Ballou, born in Smithfield in 1829, became a Civil War officer known for the letter he wrote before the Battle of Bull Run. Gina Raimondo, born in 1971, served as the 75th Governor of Rhode Island from 2015 to 2021 before becoming the United States Secretary of Commerce through 2025. Cyrus Aldrich, born in Smithfield in 1808, went on to represent Minnesota in Congress. David Wilkinson, born in 1771, co-built Slater Mill. Ronald K. Machtley, born in 1948, served as a United States Congressman and then led Bryant University as president from 1996 to 2020, making him an unusually long-tenured bridge between the town's political and academic worlds. Smithfield's friendship city, Stepanakert in Artsakh, was formally recognized in 2023.