Credit - "The Dartmouth-Westport Chronicle, used with permission"
History of Smith Mills recalled in longtime resident’s lecture By Robert Barboza Chronicle Correspondent DARTMOUTH – A packed house of history buffs, mostly older residents of the town, filled the Russells Mills Schoolhouse on Sunday night for an illustrated lecture on the history of Smith Mills, one of Dartmouth’s earliest villages, presented by Dartmouth Historical & Arts Society president Bob Harding. Harding’s talk began with a slide showing the 1871 map of the North Dartmouth neighborhood, ringed by photos of old buildings in existence at the time, but mostly lost to the wrecking ball over the years. “Most of them are gone now… it’s called progress, I guess,” the local historian said. An 1871 map of the village of Smith Mills shows the extensive landholdings of the Cummings family, and the sites of the old buildings, mostly gone now, that are pictured in the photographs surrounding the map. Most of the early photos were included in the slide show that illustrated DHAS president Bob Harding's recent lecture on the early days of the village. PHOTOS BY ROBERT BARBOZA/THE CHRONICLE The former Alden Avenue resident explained that the lecture was based on research material he has been accumulating for years, with the help of other Historical & Arts Society members, for an intended book on the long history of Smith Mills. Several of the early photos in the slide show pictured the old granite mill building on State Road owned by the Cummings family in the 1800s. The structure stood on the banks of the Paskamansett River, on a site where the town’s first grist mill was erected by Henry Tucker and George Babcock back in 1684. The millworks property was purchased by Elisha Smith in 1706, and shortly afterwards, the growing neighborhood began being referred to as Smith Mills. Over the years, the area become one of the first commercial centers of the town, being the site of a number of businesses and the first “Town House” (circa 1714) where townspeople would gather to hold town meetings and conduct other government business. Harding mostly focused on the era of the commercial heyday of Smith Mills in the 1800s, when the large Cummings family was the largest property owners in the neighborhood. John and Elizabeth Cummings, the parents of 13 children, were key figures in the expanding village that ran along present-day Route 6, Harding said. Relations William and Benjamin Cummings helped foster the commercial development of the village in that century. . 
An early photo of the John Cummings granite mill on State Road, in the Smith Mills neighborhood. The old granite mill building was owned by the Cummings family in the 1800s, but the site on the banks of the Paskamansett River was likely the same place where the town’s first grist mill was erected by Henry Tucker and George Babcock back in 1684.
That main road through the north end of town was then called the New Bedford Road if you were traveling east, and the Rhode Island Road by westbound travelers, he noted. The main commercial district was bounded by Slocum and Hathaway Roads in the east, and Cross Road in the west; State Road ended at Faunce Corner, with travelers having the option of turning left down Old Westport Road to go west and south, or right to travel north. The oldest photos in the slide presentation showed residents using horse and buggy, wagons, and later, trolley cars for transportation. One interesting photograph pictured a 20-mule team hauling a wagon with an unknown heavy load along the roadway lined with stately elm trees; later photographs chronicled the arrival of cars and trucks in the 1900s. Other pictures showed the old Smith Mills Schoolhouse which once served the neighborhood, the home of whaling captain Alden Potter, and the Quaker meetinghouse that stood on the south side of State Road near the Tucker Road intersection. Built around 1845 when the Tucker family led a faction of Quakers called the Wilburites to break away from the New England Yearly Meeting, the meetinghouse “was dismantled and moved to Deerfield,” Harding noted. It still stands in that town, being part of the Woolman Quaker Center in that town. When the talk moved on to the 1900s, many longtime residents of town remarked on their memories of photographs of landmarks such as the Hawes Homestead and sawmill, on the later site of the Paskamansett Links golf course, today the Dartmouth Mall; the Tavern at Smith Mills; and the popular Pop’s Lunch at the corner of State Road and Faunce Corner, where the sign above the door described it as a friendly place “where old friends meet.” An earlier portion of the evening’s lecture focused another neighborhood landmark – the Country Club of New Bedford, whose original nine-hole, par 40 layout was bounded by State Road, Slocum Road, and Hathaway Road. Archival material indicated the golf course was laid out in 1902 on property owned mostly by Abraham Perry, consisting of “86 acres of rolling land, with hills and valleys, and ledges here and there.” The links were designed by noted local golf pro David Findlay, “and Frederick Law Olmstead was the landscape designer,” Harding noted. Olmstead is most famous for designing Central Park in New York City, but his portfolio of work also included New Bedford’s Buttonwood Park. Early newspaper accounts indicated that the country club plans included tennis courts, croquet grounds, and a nearby site where the New Bedford and Dartmouth elite could spend some of their leisure time shooting clay pigeons. In the early days, sheep were used to trim the grass on the fairways, and many celebrated golf pros walked the links in the early 1900s… including U.S. Open champions Jerome Travers and Alec Ross, who played an exhibition match there in 1907. Later, Ross’ more famous brother, premier golf course designer Donald Ross, was reportedly “interested” in laying out the second nine holes of the links; whether he did or not is still among the unresolved bits of history Harding is still researching. Over the years, generations of local golfers have enjoyed playing the course at the country club, Harding said, including himself – one of the closing photographs in the “golfing” portion of the program was a picture of a smiling young Bob Harding after winning the club’s Junior Amateur Tourney more than 50 years ago |
