William's Wharf - Brown and Howard Wharf (Newport, Rhode Island)

 marina, mill, condos, wharf, textile industry

"Established by Lewis Brown and John Howard in 1870
Reinvented by Peter de Savary in 2010" 16 unit luxury condo complex ($3m condos)
www.vanderbiltresidences.com/index.php

The marina can accommodate yachts up to 250 feet in length with beams up to 40 feet and drafts up to 14 feet.
brownandhowardmarina.com/

Williams’ Woolen Mill
Probably the most enigmatic of all the textile mills in Newport is the woolen mill of John D. Williams. The mill was built around 1836 and was located on the north side of what is now Brown & Howard’s Wharf but was, back then, known as Williams’ Wharf. The smallest of the mills, it was employing but 50 people when it burnt to the ground in April 1860 (Bayles 537, RIHPC 11). Little is known of the mill except that it does indeed appear on the 1850 and 1859 Dripps’ maps and not on the 1870 Beers’ map.

By 1884 Brown and Howard own the property and the city has their coal yard on the wharf. There is a small ice house on the wharf (Newport Ice Company) and sheds for sawing kindling wood and carpentry. By 1891 the ice house is gone, having been converted into a wood storage shed. This basic set-up, the wharf as a coal/wood dealers business, would remain the same right up through 1921.

Before this land was used as a mill, there is some belief that it was a location of a distillery (United States, Hazard Building).

'Industry in the Southern Thames Street Neighborhood of Newport, Rhode Island, 1820 -1920'
Daniel P. Titus, Salve Regina University
escholar.salve.edu/fac_staff_pub/31/