Wanskuck, Providence, Rhode Island

Wanskuck is a neighborhood in the northern part of Providence, Rhode Island.

The name of the area appears in early city records as Wanscott, Wenscott, or Wenscutt, which are derived from a Narragansett word for “low lands.” The area was annexed to North Providence in 1765, when it was mostly farmland.

[1] Textile mills were built along neighborhood streams in the 19th century, among them the Wanskuck Company.

Wanskuck was formed in 1862 by Stephen T. Olney, Jesse Metcalf and Henry J. Steere, and prospered by providing woolen uniforms to soldiers in the American Civil War.

In the early 1900s the neighborhood was a polyglot of immigrants, including English, Scottish, Irish, French Canadians, Italians and Germans.