Sailmaker Jane Nelle

 14 Mar 26: 

On December 20 1984, the Bristol Phoenix memorialized Jane Nelle. Jane Nelle was a sailmaker at HMCo. beginning in 1923. She trained under sailmaker Billy Paine, and left with Paine in 1933 when he began his own sailmaking business. Her career spanned an era of great transition in sailmaking, from cotton to nylon and Dacron. Today she is thought to have been the first female sailmaker in Rhode Island. She later worked at Thurston Sails in Warren, RI, for fifteen years. She has since been featured as part of an exhibit about remarkable Rhode Island women at the Roger Williams University Library.