The mill records and the textile mills that produced them were a product of the Industrial Revolution that came to Rhode Island in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the beginning, cloth was dressed and colored in the mill but the weaving and spinning took place in the homes of individuals. Gradually, with the advent of water powered looms, mechanized and centralized manufacturing took over the weaving and spinning functions as well.

Woolen cloth manufacturing in Rhode Island was centered in South Kingstown and North Kingstown. Davisville, a part of North Kingstown, was the location of several mills in the nineteenth century. One of the largest Davisville mill companies was E. and J. Davis, which operated woolen mills on the Hunt's River. Although not all the ledgers and day books in the Davisville Mill(s) Records are identified by the name of the mill, those that have identifying names indicate they were from the E. and J. Davis mills or from a later version of that company.

Joshua Davis settled in Davisville in 1694 and had established a gristmill as early as 1700. In the early nineteenth century, Joshua Davis's descendants began a textile business near the grist mill site. At first the business was limited to wool carding and cloth dressing and coloring. The cloth was woven on hand looms in private homes. Later the firm acquired a water powered woolen loom, further mechanizing the cloth manufacturing process. Samples of two types of worsted wool, both plaid and plain, are contained in the records. The mill may have made other wool as well.

A small town developed around the Davis mills. By the mid-nineteenth century, it consisted of the textile mill, a grist mill, a forge, a store, two Davis family farms and houses, employee housing and a post office, established in 1851. Many of the ledgers and day books from the Records detailed the transactions of the store. The employees were usually paid at least part of their wages in produce or store goods.

In 1847, the textile mill was destroyed by fire. The company was reorganized as Davis, Reynolds and Co. and the mill was rebuilt in 1849. The new partners in the firm were James M. Davis, a son of Ezra Davis, Henry Sweet, a son-in-law of Ezra, and Albert S. Reynolds, a nephew of Ezra. In 1873, the mill partnership was disbanded and the mill closed. Later, it reopened under another name but in the same 1847 building. The mill was closed permanently in 1924 and the building was demolished in the early 1970s.

There are three Davis family houses still standing today on Davisville Road in Davisville. One was Joshua Davis's second house, dating from around 1715-1720. It is located at 296 Davisville Road and the original house is now embedded in a series of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century additions. Another surviving house is an 1805 Federal house. A third is a Victorian mansion of 1856 with a series of outbuildings attached at the rear of the structure. Gone are the mills themselves, the workers' houses, the store and the 1851 post office.