Historic Harrisville

"Harrisville's history includes in miniature many developments important to the history of the nation. Here one finds, successively, a frontier community of self-sufficient farmers, the utilization of waterpower to run small mills, the erection of a factory village, the rise and fall of a paternalistic authority, the color and conflict brought by mass immigration, the railroad mania, clashes between farmers and mill population, a separatist movement, the transformation of an economy punctuated by booms and busts, and the slow growth of a sense of community." - John Borden Armstrong