The Town of Coventry, located in west-central Rhode Island, is approximately nineteen miles southwest of Providence, the state’s capital. The Town lies within the boundaries of the original Shawomet Purchase of 1643, a tract of land purchased by English settlers from local Native American Indians. The track encompassed modern-day Coventry, Warwick, and West Warwick. Samuel Gorton, an early immigrant and civic leader of the Colony of Rhode Island, and eleven others bought the land from Miantonomi, Chief Sachem of the Narragansett Indians.
For nearly a century, settlement thrived in current-day Warwick and West Warwick areas, but the western portion of the purchase remained relatively uninhabited. By 1741, enough settlers had migrated west into the area now known as Coventry that the residents petitioned the General Assembly of Rhode Island to establish the Town of Coventry. The Town became the 16th incorporated township in the colony and is said to be named after the City of Coventry, England.
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Coventry was originally an agricultural and timber community and transitioned during the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century into a textile center. Mills were built where waterpower was abundant, and Coventry had many such sites. Over the next century, the eastern end of the Town became industrialized, with multiple villages established to support the mills. The industrial jobs attracted French Canadian and Irish workers. At the end of the 19th century, almost one-fourth of the population was born outside the U.S., and French was the primary language for many eastern Coventry residents.
By the mid-20th century, industry had primarily left the Town, and most factories had closed. Since the late 20th century, the Town has attracted many new residents, and much of the eastern part of the Town has become suburbanized. In the early 21st century, a movement to limit residential development in the western sections of Coventry has helped preserve the rural nature of Coventry’s beginnings.
See more about the town on the official website for the Town of Coventry, RI.