Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/631

 NATHANIEL F. POTTER. 515 One of the valuable results of the Improvement Society was the quickening of educational zeal for better schools, better teachers, and better schoolhouses, and the new Nayatt schoolhouse may be traced to the active efforts of this soci- ety. An account of that most interesting result may be found in the chapter on " Education." While social and educational reforms were slowly working towards a new state of society in town, material interests also needed an impulse in the right direction. The chief business was farming, and the raising of crops, the care of stock, and the marketing of farm products were the sole occupations of the people. In 1848 a new industry suddenly sprang up as if by magic. In the early history of the town, brick-making had been carried on by Matthew Watson, Senior, at the head of the east branch of Mouscochuck Creek. At his death the work was suspended, and this sec- tion of the swamp was thereafter known as " the clay-pits." In the summer and autumn of 1847, several Providence gentlemen with guns on their shoulders, but with earth augurs under their coats, might have been seen hunting in the woods at Nayatt, in search of game. The "game" they were seeking was the quality and depth of the clay deposit under the soil. Satisfied with their exploration, purchase was made of a large tract of apparently valueless land, beneath the surface of which lay beds of clay of great value. The chief explorer of the party was Nathaniel F. Potter of Providence, a man of great business ability, of tremendous energy and executive skill. Mr. Potter had interested capi- tal in this enterprise for the manufacture and sale of brick, and in a brief space of time, buildings were erected, machin- ery constructed, and transportation provided so that in the spring of 1848 brick were again manufactured, not as before, by hand, but now by steam processes on the banks of the Mouscochuck. From this time from one hundred to two hundred men were em- ployed for six months in the year and a large number throughout the year in the various departments of this great