Hartford

Hartford is located at the western most edge of the city. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Silver Lake to the south, Olneyville to the east, Manton to the northeast, and the town of Johnston to the west and north. Route 6 and the Woonasquatucket River are the major boundaries between Hartford and Olneyville. Hartford Avenue is the major thoroughfare in the neighborhood and runs from Olneyville Square on an east-west axis through the middle of the neighborhood. It is also important to note that Route 6 was constructed only recently in the history of this neighborhood. At one time, the physical and psychological boundaries between Hartford and the Olneyville/Manton area did not exist. Now the only means of traveling to those places are Hartford Avenue to Olneyville and Glenbridge Avenue to Manton.

Before the arrival of white settlers, the Hartford area was the site of a large soapstone quarry used by the Narragansett Indians. The quarry, rediscovered in 1878, was used by the Narragansetts as a workshop for the production of instruments for both family use and commercial trade. Items such as soapstone pots, dishes, and pipes were the most commonly crafted instruments. Nineteenth century researchers found the quarry deeply gouged, indicating years of use by the Narragansetts. Several artifacts from the quarry are now held by Roger Williams Park, Brown University, the Peabody Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution.

The first white settlers to the area were almost exclusively farmers. Hartford remained a rural, agricultural region throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On some of the land out in the woods, the owners built small, simple houses with only the bare necessities where owners could stay overnight or for a few days. Eventually, the country atmosphere attracted these owners and they moved there permanently. This is how most of the suburban communities in Providence first started.

Although the Hartford area was primarily used for farming, the proximity of the Woonasquatucket River fostered some industry. The industrialization of Hartford began in the early part of the nineteenth century with the establishment of Mill Merino in 1812 by the Waterman family of Hartford Avenue. Built in an area which was then part of the Town of Johnston, Mill Merino was the second textile mill to be situated in the general area of Olneyville. Its main product was a soft, cashmere-like material called "merino cloth," which was named after merino sheep.

As was often the case in other areas of Providence, Hartford's first residential village developed in order to meet the needs of the mill workers and their families. Merino Village, as it was named, consisted of stone houses, a general store, and a water supply, all of which the company had established. Village life was intricately connected to the daily operation of the mill, as the water supply's tower bell would ring out a children's curfew and the beginning and end of the work day. Fire gutted the original mill complex in 1841, and it lay inactive until rebuilding was completed in 1853. The mill was later purchased by Franklin Manufacturing Company. While the mill no longer exists today, Merino Street, named of course after the mill, is a constant reminder of the mill which initiated the development of the neighborhood.

Despite the arrival of immigrants from various countries in southern Europe, residents of Irish ancestry remained the largest ethnic group through the first half of the 20th century. A significant migration of Polish people to Providence occurred during the first quarter of the 20th century and then again after World War II. These Polish immigrants settled primarily in Olneyville but also in the Hartford, Manton, and Valley sections of the city. By 1946, there was also a substantial group of Italian-Americans who had settled in the Hartford and Manton areas as well.

By the mid-twentieth century, large scale developments led to major changes in the neighborhood. The construction of the Route 6 Connector, which was begun in the early 1950s to lessen the traffic in Olneyville Square, meant the destruction of a great portion of working-class housing. In 1953, two large low-income housing projects were also constructed: the Hartford Park Public Housing Project, directly west of Olneyville Square, and the Manton Heights Housing Projects, off of Manton Avenue on the other side of the highway. These two projects were once touted as the most modern housing of their time. By the 1970s, however, each housing project became increasingly plagued by age, vandalism, and neglect. In the 1980s, 243 of the original 748 units in the Hartford Park housing project were demolished, while the remaining 508 units were subject to long awaited renovations.

The population of Hartford in 2000 was 6,261, about 27 percent more than the 4,933 residents recorded in the 1990 census. According to the 2000 census, 34 percent of residents in Hartford were Nonhispanic White, compared to almost double that number ten years earlier; about 48 percent were Hispanic, nearly 8 percent were African American, and about 5 percent were Asian. At the time of the 2000 census, almost 60 percent of residents in Hartford spoke a language other than English at home. More than half (57%) of Hartford residents of age 25 or older had completed high school and a fifth of residents had a college degree or higher according to the 2000 Census.

Manufacturing was the largest source of employment among employed residents, accounting for roughly one in four jobs (24%). Almost one in five (18%) Hartford residents were employed in education, health and social services in 2000 and ten percent in retail trade. The unemployment rate in Hartford in 2000 jumped by 54% from 1990, putting in much higher than the citywide rate (15% versus 9.3%).

Median family income in Hartford in 1999 was $28,065, which was 8 percent lower than the citywide median family income. The incidence of poverty in Hartford rose from all the levels recorded in 1990 for all population categories. In 2000, 43 percent of persons were poor as compared to 17.2 percent in 1990. The percentage of families with income below the poverty level rose from 22.9 percent in 1990 to 40 percent in 2000, and the proportion of children that were poor rose to 60.9 percent, the highest in the city.

Housing tenure in Hartford changed substantially over the past decade. The proportion of owner-occupied housing units decreased from 45.7 percent in 1990 to 37.5 percent in 2000; renter-occupied units rose from 54.3 percent to 62.5 percent. In 2000, more than one in four (31%) housing units in Hartford were a single-family unit, about half (47%) were in structures that house two to four families, and 22 percent were in buildings with five or more units.

Nearly six out of ten housing units in Hartford were built more than 40 years ago. The median residential sales price in Hartford in 2004 was $199,250, which was 10 percent lower than the citywide median sales price but more than double the Hartford median sales price in 2000 of $83,000. Median rents in Hartford were 30 percent lower than the citywide median. Just over a third (35%) of all Hartford residents had moved into their present housing unit within the past five years, according to the 2000 census; just under a third (30%) had lived in their present unit for more than 10 years.
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Sources: Hartford: Neighborhood Analysis, Department of Planning and Urban Development (City of Providence, 1977) and Providence: A Citywide Survey of Historic Resources, edited by William McKenzie Woodward and Edward F. Sanderson (Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission, 1986).