Manton is a residential neighborhood in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
and part of
Johnston, Rhode Island
Johnston is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 29,568 at the 2020 census. Johnston is the site of the Clemence Irons House (1691), a stone-ender museum, and the only landfill in Rhode Island. Incorpora ...
. It is in the westernmost part of the city. of Providence The town of
North Providence
North Providence is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 34,114 at the 2020 census.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the Town of North Providence has a total area of , of which, is ...
borders it to the north,
Johnston to the west, while the neighborhoods of
Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...
,
Olneyville
Olneyville is a neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island bordered by Atwells Avenue to the north, U.S. Route 6 to the south and Rhode Island Route 10 to the east. The Woonasquatucket River runs through the southern portion of the neighborhood. ...
, and
Mount Pleasant border it inside Providence. Separating it from other Providence neighborhoods to its east are Rushmore Ave, Chalkstone Ave, Smith Street, and the Triggs Memorial Golf Course. The
Woonasquatucket River
The Woonasquatucket River (pronounced , Algonquian for "where the salt water ends") is a river in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. It flows approximately U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe N ...
separates it from Johnston to the west.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Manton remained a rural agrarian region. The
eponym
An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
ous
Edward Manton Edward Manton (1760-1820) was a delegate to the Hartford Convention in 1814-15.
Manton was born May 26, 1760, in Johnston, Rhode Island. Manton served as a presidential elector in United States Presidential Election of 1800. Manton "rarely mingled ...
was one of the original land owners, whose family would accumulate a huge tract of land. Toward the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the proximity of the
Woonasquatucket River
The Woonasquatucket River (pronounced , Algonquian for "where the salt water ends") is a river in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. It flows approximately U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe N ...
was responsible for the establishment of a few tanneries in Manton and neighboring
Olneyville
Olneyville is a neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island bordered by Atwells Avenue to the north, U.S. Route 6 to the south and Rhode Island Route 10 to the east. The Woonasquatucket River runs through the southern portion of the neighborhood. ...
. The rural location of Manton made it ideal for the establishment of vacation homes. A stagecoach inn was one of the earliest places to take summer vacations. In 1835, the hotel was converted to a school. In 1862, the school was demolished to make way for present-day
Rhode Island College.
Taking advantage of the water power provided by the Woonasquatucket River, early industrialists established mills, the first two being constructed in 1827 and 1830. Railroad lines running east through Olneyville to
Downtown facilitated the rapid development of the area, which was heavily industrial by the end of the 19th century.
The closure of the textile mills and collapse of
heavy industry
Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...
encouraged the exodus of working class residents to the suburbs. A public housing project, Manton Heights, was built in 1953, and may have contributed to the
white flight
White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...
. During the 1970s Manton lost 15 percent of its population. By the 1980s Manton Heights had, like so many public housing complexes, fallen into disrepair. The Manton-Fruit Hill Neighborhood Association was founded about this time and encourages neighborhood participation and improvement.
Demographics
Manton's population nearly doubled from 1,406 in 1980 to 2,584 in 1990. In 1990, 90 percent of Manton was white, 4 percent Native American, 2 percent black, and 1 percent Hispanic. Almost two-thirds of residents over the age of 25 had completed high school. The largest sources of employment were professional services (28.2%), manufacturing (21.4%), and retail trade (19.4%). The 11.2 percent unemployment rate in Manton is higher than the 9.2 percent rate for the city as a whole.
The median family income in Manton in 1989 was $27,262, which is 4 percent lower than the citywide average. Poverty rate had increased from 2.1 percent in 1980 to 12.2 percent in 1990, while families below the poverty line rose from 2.1 percent to 8.6 percent. The rate of elderly living in poverty rose from 2.9 percent in 1980 to 23.9 percent in 1990.
The number of housing units in Manton more than doubled recently, increasing from 549 in 1980 to 1,227 in 1990. Since most of these were rental units, the owner-occupied units declined from 63 percent to 41.7 percent.
The housing stock in Manton is also fairly new. More than one in three units were built within the last decade, and almost half of all units were constructed within the past 20 years. The median value of a single family owner-occupied housing unit in Manton in 1990 was $103,900, which was 7 percent lower than the citywide median. The median rent in Manton was 8 percent lower than the citywide figure.
References
Neighborhood Profiles at providenceri.com
{{coord, 41.8339, -71.4667, type:adm3rd_globe:earth_region:US-RI, display=title
Neighborhoods in Providence, Rhode Island