[3] In 1636 Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, settled on the east bank of the river and was told its name by the local Narragansett Indians.

Further north on the Moshassuck are the few remaining early-and-late nineteenth-century buildings of the Allen Printworks, a textile-printing operation.

In Pawtucket along the river are the remaining structures of the Hope Webbing Company and the Lorraine Mills.

[4] During the twentieth century, the river steadily lost its functions as an industrial and transportation artery.

[4] The Moshassuck's source is an unnamed pond within the Lime Rock Preserve in Lincoln, Rhode Island, north and west of the intersection of Wilbur Road and Route 146.