Bousquetaerials.com / Nate Bousquet

A tale of two families is hidden in this aerial photo that shows Horseshoe Falls in Shannock and the white water of the Pawcatuck River below the falls.

The falls and river are the centerpiece of Shannock, a village that straddles the line between Richmond and Charlestown. On their left side were the enterprises of the Clark Family, which in 1848 built the horseshoe-shaped dam that created Horseshoe Falls at the site of a natural waterfall.

That’s according to Sanford Neuschatz, a village resident who calls himself an “amateur historian,” and who owns the building that sits just to the left of the falls in the photo. Though from the air it looks like a modern garage, it’s more than two centuries old and once was the village’s grist mill. It probably dates to 1770, and was certainly there by the American Revolution, Neuschatz says; blankets were woven there for the Continental Army. Later it was a farmer’s carpentry shop. Neuschatz, whose house adjoins it, uses it for storage.

Across the road on the same side of the river are the ruins of the original Clark Cotton Mill, also circa 1848, where cotton cloth was spun. The enterprise grew in the following century into the Columbia Narrow Fabric Company, makers of elastic bands used in socks and BVD underwear.

On the right side of the river were buildings belonging to the Hoxie family, which owned another cotton mill. The large gray building at center top in the photo, probably built in the 1880s, housed the Pioneer Store, a grocery, in its basement, for almost a century. The first floor was used by businesses including an ice-cream store and barbershop, and a newspaper the Hoxies published for their 200 employees, the Shannock Gab.

There were apartments on the second floor, and on the top floor, beneath the mansard roof, was Hoxie Hall, a dance hall where there also were lectures, minstrel shows, and –– right after the Civil War –– meetings of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army. The ticket booth and stage are still there, Neuschatz said, but the hall is not used. The rest of the building is now apartments.

The house at upper left in the photo, built in the 1830s or ’40s, also belonged to the Hoxies. So did the one across the road, mostly cut off in the picture.

The photos in this series are shot from a 2½-pound radio-controlled airplane mounted with a camera, and operated by Nate Bousquet of Don Bousquet and Son Aerial Photography. This photo was shot March 24.

More photos of Shannock, including a 1942 aerial, are at Neuschatz’s Web site, www.driftways.com.

—ALAN ROSENBERG

South County Regional Editor