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After the Fire: What Remains of Gloversville Continental Mills A Field of Bricks The bricks were everywhere. Not stacked, not standing. Just scattered across the ground like something vast had simply let go. What used to be Mill No. 3 of the former Gloversville-Continental Mills now spread out before me like a field of rubble, stretching from Beaver Street all the way back to the Cayadutta Creek bank. Thousands of bricks, the same ones that had held this building upright through more than a century of American manufacturing history, lay in random heaps with nowhere left to go. In one corner, pressed against a sealed-off wall, sat what remained of steel beams, HVAC machinery, and other miscellaneous load-bearing beams and the remains of 40 historical knitting machines. The fire had taken everything soft about them. What was left were twisted red-brown skeletons of rust and charred metal, piled on top of each other like they had tried to hold on and failed. Standing there in the ...
The historic Stillmanville Woolen Mill, also known as the Connecticut Castings Mill, was demolished in April 2019.
The property, located along the Pawcatuck River in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, had operated under numerous business names over its long history, including the Westerly Shirt Company, Eagle Waste & Metal Company, Arnold Brothers Westerly Woolen Mills, and the Lenox Shirt Factory.
Today, all that remains of the 19th-century mill complex is the foundation pad and the underground tail race that once channeled water from the Pawcatuck River to power the machinery inside. Long gone is the foot bridge that spanned the Pawcatuck River where workers walked from Connecticut straight over the border to Westerly, Rhode Island. Isn't that super cool?
🗺️ I have added updated Sanborn Maps to this article, detailing the many business names associated with the mills from 1885 to 1946, tracing the site's evolution from woolen mill to shirt factory to metal casting.
Approaching the Connecticut Castings Mill, also known as the Stillmanville Mill, there were about three vacant boats lined up along the pathway to the mill, in various states of disrepair. From time to time, I have found various forms of recreational vehicles at various mills across the Eastern seaboard. From old cars to aquatic vehicles, I have found at least one vehicle, whether stripped down to its frame or fully left to rot like it was left a few months ago. Mills always have something sequestered within the old decaying spaces within their walls. This mill was no different.
One of my favorites from here.
"Let me drive the boat" in my best Kodak Black voice
As you can see above, the Arnold Brothers Westerly Woolen Mills started out and was last surveyed as the Eagle Waste & Metal Company in 1921-1946. The mill complex was actually connected by a footbridge, allowing employees to cross back and forth between Pawcatuck, Connecticut, and Westerly, Rhode Island. In addition, Stillman Avenue was known as Grove Avenue.
Stillmanville would not be so named if it were not for the man known today as Oremus M. Stillman, who established the industrial neighborhood as Rhode Island became the forefront of the American Industrial Revolution.
Along where Canal Street runs, Samuel Brand built a woolen mill roughly half a mile north of downtown Westerly around 1798. The town population at the time was a mere 15 people. Canal Street as its name was derived, was actually a canal that was built by Pawcatuck Manufacturing Company to increase hydropower capacity. Unfortunately, the canal was filled in and built over. Today it is now known as Canal Street.
In the early 1800s, John Schofield, an Englishman, acquired the saw and linseed oil mill built by John Congdon before being purchased by Oremus M. Stillman in 1831, who added a woolen mill. Mr. Stillman replaced the original mill building in 1848 with two three-story red brick buildings. The Woolen mill was then purchased by F.R.White and Company, which maintained an extensive woolen goods plant opposite the Stillmanville mill east of the Pawcatuck River in Westerly, Rhode Island. In 1880, Warren O. and Louis W. Arnold purchased the firm and renamed it the Westerly Woolen Company. The brothers made substantial improvements to the land and even demolished the former Stillmanville Woolen Mill during the mid-2010s. In 1912, the Westerly Woolen Mill was liquidated at auction 1912 after being in operation since 1881, employing 450 people across two dozen buildings up until the early 1910s.
You can see a stereograph of the Stillmanville here.
Eventually, the property's last purpose was a foundry that occupied and operated on both sides of the state line, the Connecticut Casting Corporation in Connecticut and Westerly Casting Company in Rhode Island. The factory sits on the west bank of the Pawcatuck River and abuts the ruins of the former stone dam that provided power in the early days of Stillmanville Mill.
However, in 2005, the mill was supposed to be developed into apartments but was ultimately shelved in the 2007 economic downturn. A Worcester, Massachusetts development firm was supposed to redevelop the site into a 18,000-square-foot lot. The property has sat vacant for over 20 years due to its designation as a brownfield site, which can add considerable costs in demolition and remediation before even the foundation can be poured. The site was used, as stated before, as an oil and sawmill, a woolen mill, a waste handling company, and a laundry and metal castings factory. The latter closed down in the late 1990s.
In April 2019, the mill was demolished due to its deteriorating condition and possible imminent collapse and contamination of the Pawcatuck River.
Quantaspec Vacuum X-Ray Spectrograph machine.
Casting equipment and industrial residue.
Either the window was removed, or an intricate window piece was taken from here.
The top floor of Stillmanville Mill
Looking at the mill from the bridge sidewalk.
🧵 Did You Work at the Stillmanville Woolen Mill or Connecticut Castings?
Were you or a family member employed at this legendary Pawcatuck mill that was separated by the Pawcatuck River which splits state borders evenly between Westerly, Rhode Island and Pawcatuck, Connecticut — whether under Oremus M. Stillman, F.R. White & Co., the Westerly Woolen Company, Westerly Shirt Company, Eagle Waste & Metal Company, Arnold Brothers Westerly Woolen Mills, Lenox Shirt Factory, or Connecticut Castings? Do you have photographs of the brick mill before its 2019 demolition, or memories of the days when the Pawcatuck River powered an industrial village?
📩 Share Your Memory
or drop a comment below — full credit given to every contributor
⬇ Keep Reading — More Mill & Textile History
🏭 More Abandoned Mills
From woolen mills and foundries to brickworks and paint plants — explore the lost industrial giants that once powered the Northeast.
1. Vallee, Jason, "Stonington secures brownfield grants for Mystic Boathouse Park, Stillmanville testing", June 28, 2021, The Westerly Sun
2. "Stillmanville: Westerly's Lost Village", SeeWesterly
3. Sommer, Carol, "Innovators in industry and the arts: the Scholfield's", January 20, 2019, The Day
4. Ferreira, Nicholas & Platow, Madison, "Former Stillmanville Mill Remediation Project for the Town of Stonington, CT", April 2020, UCONN School of Engineering
5. Stillmanville Mill Property Abandonment Report, Town of Stonington Department of Planning, November 4, 2018, Stillmanville Mill
6. Valle, Jason, "Town denied access to old casting mill site", January 30, 2020, The Westerly Sun
7. Wojtas, Joe, "Demolition continues on Pawcatuck Mill", April 16, 2019, The Day
8. Wojtas, Joe, "Stonington begins to demolish collapsing mill", April 15, 2019, The Day
9. (1912) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Westerly, Washington County, Rhode Island. Sanborn Map Company, Nov. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08106_006/
10. (1921) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Westerly, Washington County, Rhode Island. Sanborn Map Company, Aug. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08106_007/
11. (1907) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Westerly, Washington County, Rhode Island. Sanborn Map Company, May. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08106_005/
12. (1885) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Westerly, Washington County, Rhode Island. Sanborn Map Company, Feb. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08106_001/
13. (1946) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Westerly, Washington County, Rhode Island. Sanborn Map Company, Aug - Jan 1946. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08106_008/
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