Blackstone Valley Historical Society

History of the Original Arnold’s Lonsdale Bakery

In 1795, a gentleman by the name of Hezekiah Kent purchased a tract of land near the late
Reverend William Blackstone’s “Study Hill” site, just opposite the “Catholic Oak” on what is today Broad Street in the town of Cumberland. On this land, Hezekiah and his wife erected a house and barn.

As farming was a seasonal occupation, Hezekiah soon added a workshop where he could fabricate shoes to generate extra income when farming chores were less demanding. The workshop was small, (about 13 x 18 feet), and stood on a fieldstone foundation. The building’s frame was pegged-post and beam in construction, with broad side and roof boards fastened with primitive hand forged nails. Tax records indicate Hezekiah Kent still owned the house and outbuildings on Broad Street in 1874. At that time the homestead was valued at $1800.00.

Joseph Jenks Arnold and his wife lived near the Kents in a tiny cottage out of which they operated a small provisions store. They had moved into this small house in 1870. By 1875 Hezekiah’s small workshop lay idle and Joseph Jenks Arnold approached him with a business proposition. The Arnolds had been selling home-baked bread from their store but needed more than a home kitchen to meet customer demand. Joseph Jenks Arnold offered to pay rent for use of the small workshop and installed an oven for making bread and other baked goods. Initially Mr. Arnold personally carried the bread and other baked goods and sold them door to door.

Early Valley womenfolk welcomed the convenience of the time and effort saved by the delivery of fresh breads to their doorstep, and by 1878 Mr. Arnold employed a full time baker to help keep up with demand. The 1890’s saw yet more expansion by the growing bakery. Eight employees were baking and making deliveries full time.

By 1906 the business was incorporated with Mr. Joseph Jenks Arnold as its first president and employment had grown to 20. Operations at the bakery had long outgrown the small converted workshop on Broad Street and the Arnolds had moved to the booming mill village of Saylesville in the town of Lincoln. There they build their family homes and a new and much larger brick bakery on Chapel Street. The new brick bakery was enlarged in 1915, and by that time, the Arnolds were employing 50 people in their baking and delivery operations.

When Joseph Jenks Arnold passed away in 1934, his son, Ernest Jenks Arnold, succeeded his father as president of the Arnold’s Lonsdale Bakery Company. During the period there was a decline in textile activity in the Valley and many mills were selling off mill housing and real estate not essential to production. The Lonsdale Company (now the owner of the old wooden bakery in Cumberland) was no exception. For nostalgic reasons Ernest Jenks Arnold moved it from Cumberland and had the building set on a new concrete foundation prepared for it alongside the new brick bakery on Chapel Street. He then restored the building, painted the clapboard siding a bright red and moved his family’s collection of early bakery artifacts into the relocated structure.

In 1991 private citizens, civic groups and others, undertook efforts to save the old structure that had fallen into serious disrepair. Unfortunately, there was no mutual agreement on how best to save the structure.

In 1997, with only one month left before the construction of a new post office at the former bakery site, the Blackstone Valley Historical Society, with the assistance of the Town of Lincoln, and cooperation of the property owners, was able to take possession, dismantle, and move the original Arnold’s Lonsdale Bakery building. The executive board and membership of the BVHS wished to preserve the early bakery building for number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that the Arnold Family with its long history of providing quality baked goods in the 19th and 20th centuries had more than a passing impact on the lives of Blackstone Valley residents on both sides of the river. Also, there are few examples of early workshops which have survived to this day.

In 1998, the reconstruction and restoration of the Arnold’s Lonsdale Bakery at its new home adjacent to the Old Limerock Grange No. 22 Fire Station, using as much of the original material as possible, was begun and completed.

Sources: This history is based in part on municipal documents and recollections of Ernest Jenks Arnold and Barbara Milloy originally complied by Charles E. Savoie; paraphrased and updated by Patricia A. Armitage, June, 2006.