The State Farm
by Gladys Brayton,
from the Cranston Historical Society Archives
October 1969
A century has passed since the State Institutions at Howard were established here in Cranston as the State Farm. In May of 1869 the General Assembly passed an act which formed the State Board of Charities and Corrections, which was "to devise a better system of caring for the unfortunate and unlawful classes of the State".
Two Cranston farms were purchased that year. The First was the Howard farm, so called, owned by William Augustus Howard of Providence. It contained 280.55 acres and buildings. It has been the Benjamin Arnold farm from 1722-1799, had come down to John Rice Arnold and had been left to Mr. Howard, who had been brought up in the Arnold Family. Mr. Howard had improved farm after he acquired it and often visited it, particularly in the summer months. He sold it to the State for $222,500.00.
The second farm was part of the old Stukely Westcott farm (1672-1750) on the Sockanosset Cross Road, owned at the time by Thomas Brayton. It contained 117.45 acres and the price of $7000.00 included the old homestead still standing at the rear of the Old Boy's School grounds.
A workhouse was the first building planned was built on the Howard farm. It opened July of that first year. Built of wood, it burned a few years later and was replaced by a more durable structure of stone.
On November 7th of the following year the Asylum for the Insane was erected and, soon after, the Alms House.
Extensive stone quarries located on the premises furnished material for later buildings. Horace Foster of Coventry, a master stone mason, who had built the mills in the Pawtuxet Valley for the Spragues, was hired and built the House of Corrections in 1872. He laid the walls of the State Prison as early as 1874 and completed it in 1878.
General Nelson Viall was Warden of the Old Prison in Providence which lay over the Cove at a site about where the Normal School was later built. On November 29th and 30th of that year he transferred his prisoners to the new building six miles away, marching them over the road handcuffed together, each with a blanket about his shoulders for warmth.
All this took place without incidents of any kind. But the story is told of one of the prisoners, an eccentric man from Cape Cod, a horse stealer, who smuggled two rats he had tamed while at the Gaspee Street institution in the breast of his coat on the long march. He was allowed to keep them for a little while, but one day while he was at work, maybe designed accident, they gained the freedom of the corridors at the same time that a dog happened to be there and were never heard from again. Another of the man's eccentricities was his nightly habit of doing hair up in curl papers, a little luxury he was never denied.
Warden Viall was a strict disciplinarian but an understanding man. He had enlisted at the call of Governor Sprague in 1861, held the commission of Lt., raised a company and proceeded to the defense of Washington under Colonel Burnside. He rose in rank to Brevet Brigadier General in 1866. After leaving the service, he was made the first chief of police in Providence but resigned that position to take charge of the RI State Prison in 1867. He was very proud of the colored regiment he commanded during the war and when he moved to the new prison he proceeded to landscape and beautify the broad lawns, planting trees and shrubs in memory of the staff, the band, and the soldiers of his regiment.
In 1880 the first eight acres for the Girl's School were purchased from Job Wilbur and the school opened two years later.
In 1890 the Reform School for the Boys was opened on the cottage plan.
The little depot on the Pawtuxet Valley Branch line of the NY, NH and Hartford Railroad which had served the new State Farm and the community around it had borne the name State Farm, as did the Post Office, until members of the community petitioned it be changed as they objected to their mail being addressed State Farm, as that meant the Institutions, and so it was changed to Howard, named for William Augustus Howard whose farm had been purchased as the first unit for what has grown over those last one hundred years into a vast complex of buildings for the rehabilitation of the unlawful and the comfort of the unfortunate.