continued from part 3.
"At about the same time, Zachariah Allen made another important proposal,
that of platting the Town. Under his able direction, the first scientific
survey of Providence was made; besides, he exerted a leading influence in
the movement which resulted in a geological survey of the State. In 1825,
he formed a company and built the Powder Mill Turnpike, a toll toad now
called Smith Street. This early highway was surfaced with gravel taken
from the quarry on Mr. Allen's farm in Centerdale, in which village the
Revolutionary War powder house was erected, the source of the original name
of the Allen company's turnpike.
When General Lafayette returned to the United States, in 1824, for his
triumphal tour of the nation which he helped to establish and preserve,
Zachariah Allen was elected as a representative of the Town Council to meet
the distinguished French military leader at the Connecticut border and
escort him to Providence. Mr. Allen was only twenty-nine at the time, but
he was then regarded as an outstanding and representative citizen, and,
too, he could converse in French. Ephraim Bowen, the only survivor of the
'Gaspee' expedition then living, also had the honor of accompanying
Lafayette who had a pleasant stay here, renewing all acquaintances and
recalling exciting days in Rhode Island when he was an important factor in
the struggle for liberty a half century before.
There is a lot more to tell about Zachariah Allan and his many-sided
career, but here is just a brief outline of some of the other things he
did. He was the father of evening schools for the working people in New
England, organizing two of them, in 1840, and placing them in operation in
Providence, thus establishing the first system of its kind in the
country. He built a mill in Allendale on the Woonasquatucket River, and,
when he saw the water supply for his mill wheels became scanty in the
summer, he proposed a system of reservoirs to protect manufacturers and
employees during seasons of drought. For this plan he procured a charter,
the first act of incorporation for making reservoirs in New England. He
devised revolutionary methods of dyeing and finishing cloth; and he changed
the old system of slowly transmitting power, by discarding the massive
shafts, with cog wheels of rough and heavy castings of wood, and
substituting light shafts with balanced belt-driven pulleys traveling at
high-speed."
continued in part 5.