FALL RIVER. An important manufactur ing city and port of entry in Bristol County, Mass., near the boundary of Rhode Island, at the mouth of the Taunton River, on the eastern shore of Mount Hope Bay, and 50 miles south by west of Boston (Map: Massachusetts, E 4). It is on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail road, and is connected by electric railways with cities and towns in the vicinity. Fall River has a safe and deep harbor. The well-known Fall River Boat Line runs to New York, the Windsor Freight Line to Philadelphia, and steamers daily connect with Providence and Newport. The city is about nine miles long, covers 42 square miles, and has many' handsome structures of native granite. The most notable buildings are the commodious B. M. C. Du•fee High School of granite, the public library, the State armory, and the custom-house and post.office. Among edu cational and charitable institutions are Notre Dame College. Mount hope School, the textile school, and the Fall River Conservatory of Music: the Boys' Club, Children's Home and home for Aged People, City. Union, and Emer gency hospitals, and Saint Vincent's and Saint Joseph's homes. Public parks have been laid out in various parts of the city, and there are beauti ful drives to the suburbs.
Fall !liver has abundant water-powe• derived from Fall 'River, a stream which rises in Watup pa Lake on the eastern border of the corporate limits, and falls about 130 feet in half a mile. The city has become one of the greatest. manu facturing centres of the country, and is noted chiefly for its manufactures of cotton goods, which require over 3,000,000 spindles and 73,00(1 looms, and represent a large proportion of the total local production. Dther manufaetures include calico prints, ginghams, wottlen goods, men's hats, knit goods, yarn, thread, boots and shoes. spools and bobbins, iron and brass foundry products, ma ehincry, supplies used in cotton-goods manu facturing and bleaching, carriages, rope and twine, rublwr. soap, etc•. Cranitc-quarrying also employs a considerable nunffier of men.
The government is vested in a mayor, chosen annually; a bicameral municipal council, the up per and lower houses bearing a numerical ratio of one to three; and subordinate administrative officials. Of these, the school committee is chosen by popular election; overseers of the poor, city physicians, board of health, the reservoir com mission, and cemetery and park commission are nominated by the executive, subject to the con firmation of the council; and the water board, trustees of the public library, assessors, board of engineers of the fire department, and all other city officers are elected by the council. Fall River has an excellent system of sewers: is lighted by gas and electricity, the annual cost of street lighting being about $110,000; and owns its water-works, constructed at a cost of $2,000, 000, which provide a never-failing supply of pure water from Watuppa Lake. In 1900 the cost of operating the plant was $142000. The principal items of expense, other than those mentioned. are (approximately) $120,000 for the tire depart ment, $125,000 for charitable institutions, $140, 000 for the police department, and $315,000 for schools. The totals of income and expenditure aggregate $3,235,000 and $3,165,000 respectively.
Population, in 1850, 11,524; in 1870, 26,766: in 1890, 74,39S; in 1900, 104,863, including 50, 000 persons of foreign birth and 300 of negro descent. Fall River was included within the limits of Freetown until 1803, when it was in corporated as a separate town under its present name. It was called Troy from 1804 to 1834, when its old name was restored. In 1854 Fall River was chartered as a city, and in 1862, on the readjustment of the Massachusetts-Rhode Island boundary, a part of the town of Tiverton, R. I., with a population of 3590, was annexed. On July 2, 1843, a disastrous fire destroyed 291 buildings and other property. a total loss of $525,000. Consult Earl, .1 Centennial History of Fall Ricer (New York, 1877).