“The Knights of Elmwood”

Originally from a poor family of farmers, Benjamin Brayton Knight (1813-1898) and his younger brother, Robert Brayton Knight (1826-1912), became some of the most successful late nine-teenth-century entrepreneurs in the state of Rhode Island. Their firm, B.B. & R. Knight & Co., was famed for its “Fruit of the Loom” trademark, and their cotton manufacturing empire was vast, extending to all levels of cotton production. Robert Knight built a mansion on Elmwood Avenue in 1863, and his son, Clinton Prescott Knight’s, residence eventually stood side by side with his the street. By the late nineteenth century, Elmwood was transforming itself from an area of estates and small farms and nurseries to a more densely populated and accessible suburb of Providence. In 1924, part of the Knights’ “suburban villa” ultimately became the site of the Knight Memorial Library, a gift of Robert Knight’s children to the neighborhood and the city, given in memory of their parents.

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