USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
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MEN OF PROGRESS RHODE ISLAND
ILLUSTRATED 1896
Gc 974.5 M52 1144725
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01068 3552
MEN OF PROGRESS
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS
OF
LEADERS IN BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE
IN THE
State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
COMPILED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF RICHARD HERNDON
EDITED BY
ALFRED M. WILLIAMS AND WILLIAM F. BLANDING
BOSTON NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE 1896
1
COPYRIGHT, 1896
BY RICHARD HERNDON
AL FRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, BOSTON.
MEN OF PROGRESS.
1144725
PART I.
ALLEN, EDWIN ROBINSON, Lieutenant-Governor of Rhode Island, was born in Windham, Conn., November 26, 1840, the son of Edwin and Ruth B. (Noyes) Allen. The earlier members of the Allen family were residents of Windham county,
Tyson - $5.00
E. R. ALLEN.
Conn. Amos D. Allen, the grandfather of the subject of this biography, married Sarah Tracy, whose children were seven in number. Their son Edwin, a native of Windham county, deceased January 4, 1891, gave much attention to inventions of a practical character, and won some distinction in that line; he married Ruth B., daughter of Joseph Noyes and Elizabeth Babcock of Westerly, and their children are Edward Tracy of San Fran-
cisco, Edwin Robinson of Hopkinton, and Charles Noyes of Willington, Conn. Governor Allen re- ceived his earliest instruction at the select and public schools of the town, completing his studies at Eagleswood, N. J. In September 1856 he entered the store of his uncle, the late Charles Noyes, at Hopkinton, as clerk, and continued in that capacity until September 1862, when he en- tered the army as a private in the Seventh Regi- ment Rhode Island Infantry. He advanced in the regular line of promotion until his discharge and return in June 1865, as First Lieutenant in command of the company in which he first enlisted. During this period he participated in some of the most eventful engagements of the war, including Fred- ericksburg, fall of Vicksburg and Jackson, Spottsyl- vania, Cold Harbor. Mechanicsville, Bethesda Church, Hatchers Run, and Petersburg. On re- ceiving his discharge he resumed his duties at the store, which he has owned and managed since 1879. Mr. Allen was in 1866 elected clerk of the town of Hopkinton, and still holds that office. His con- ceded ability and integrity place him in confiden- tial relations with his townsmen. His knowledge of town affairs, acquired through years of experi- ence, and his efficiency in all matters coming be- fore probate courts, cause his advice to be fre- quently sought in the drafting of important docu- ments and in the transfer and settlement of estates. In politics he is a Republican. His political career commenced in 1889, when he represented the town of Hopkinton in the State Senate, and was thrice re-elected to that office. He was, April 1894, elected Lieutenant-Governor, and by virtue of re-election in April 1895, is the present incumbent of that office. Mr. Allen was married, January I, 1868, to Mary E., daughter of George K. Thayer and Martha E. Babcock; their children are two sons : George E., born August 1, 1869, and Frederick C. Allen, whose birth occurred August 6, 1871.
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
ARNOLD, JOHN NELSON, artist and portrait painter, was born in Masonville, now Grosvenor Dale, Thompson, Conn., June 4, 1834, the son of Benjamin and Thirza (Whitford) Arnold. His father's family were of the Warwick, R. I., Arnolds, and he is a descendant in the seventh genera- tion from Roger Williams. His mother's family were from Sterling, Conn. His parents came to Providence in 1836. He received his early edu- cation in the public schools, and graduated from the Elm-street grammar school, Caleb Farnum master, in 1850. He was then apprenticed to
JOHN N. ARNOLD.
the jewelry firm of Stone & Weaver to learn en- graving. He studied art by himself, as oppor- tunity offered, and at the expiration of his term of apprenticeship began to teach himself painting. In 1856 he opened a studio in Providence and has followed the profession of portrait painting since. He never had any instruction in art, but after he had opened a studio, he received many valuable suggestions from James S. Lincoln, who then stood at the head of his profession in the city, and con- tinued to do so until Mr. Lincoln's death ; Mr. Lincoln never took any pupils, but was always kind to young artists, ready to criticise and suggest im- provements, and in a certain sense he has always considered him his master. His artistic instinct was
developed very early, and at ten years of age he ex- ecuted a painting of a landscape bridge and water- fall. Among the portraits of prominent men he has painted there are, in the State House : Governor Francis (after Healy), Governors Anthony and Lip- pitt ; at Brown University, President Sears, Judge Pitman, Gen. Varnum and Dr. Alvah Woods ; at the City Hall, Mayors Doyle, Clarke and Potter ; at the Public Library, Henry L. Kendall and John Wilson Smith ; at the Masonic Temple, Past Grand Master N. Van Slyck and E. L. Freeman; at the Odd Fellows Hall, P. G. M. Ham and Anderson ; at the Rhode Island Historical Society, E. R. Young, Governor H. W. King and Hon. Thomas Davis ; at Warwick Town Hall, Hon. Enos Lapham, Bishop Clark, Christopher Robinson, Henry Steeres ; for the Old Men's Home, Amos Perry, Gov. John W. Davis and many others. He was Chairman of the School Committee of Johnston from 1892 to 1895. In politics he is a Democrat. He is a member of the Psychical Research Society and of the Royal Society of Good Fellows. He married, in 1856, Miss Rose Potter of Johnston, who died in 1890; they had two children : Ernest F., who died in 1875, aged seventeen, and Herbert Percy Arnold, who is now master mechanic of one of the Howland Mills in New Bedford.
ANDREWS, ELISHA BENJAMIN, President of Brown University, Providence, was born in Hins- dale, N. H., January 10, 1844, son of Erastus and Almira (Bartlett) Andrews. Both his father and grandfather were Baptist ministers, his grandfather Elisha being the founder of many churches in west- ern Massachusetts, and his father, Erastus, although never out of the ministry, being locally famous as a lecturer ; he was also a member from Franklin county for two terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and for one in the Senate. When Elisha Benjamin Andrews was six months old his parents removed to Montague, Franklin county, Mass., where he received his education at the district school and on the farm until 1858, when the family removed to Suffield, Conn., where he resided until 1861. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the Fourth Connecticut Infantry for three years. This regiment was soon transferred to the artillery service as the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery and became one of the finest vol- unteer regiments in the war. Mr. Andrews received
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
promotion through various grades and was mustered out as a Second Lieutenant, October 30, 1864. Before the war he had partly fitted for college at Connecticut Literary Institute, Suffield ; after the war he attended two terms at Powers Institute, Bernardston, Mass., and a year at Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Mass. He entered Brown University in 1866 and graduated in 1870. He graduated from Newton Theological Institution in 1874 and was ordained a Baptist clergyman the same year. He was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Beverly, Mass., in 1874-75, and resigned
E. B. ANDREWS.
to accept the Presidency of Denison University, in Ohio, which post he held until 1879. He then re- signed to accept the Professorship of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology in Newton Theological In- stitution, which he held until 1882, when he went to Germany to study history and political economy in the universities of Berlin and Munich. In 1882, before going to Europe, he had been appointed Professor of History and Political Economy in Brown University, and he filled that chair until 1888, when he accepted the Professorship of Political Economy and Finance in Cornell University. In 1889 he was elected President of Brown University, also occu- pying the Chair of Moral and Intellectual Philos- phy. In 1892 he was appointed by President
Harrison one of the members of the International Monetary Conference at Brussels. He received the honorary degree of D. D. from Colby Univer- sity in 1884, and that of LL. D. from the Univer- sity of Nebraska the same year. President Andrews has published a number of important volumes as well as a large number of addresses, lectures and magazine articles. His books are, " Brief Institutes of Constitutional History, English and American," 1886 ; " Brief Institutes of General History," 1887 ; " Institutes of Economics," 1889 ; " History, Pro- phecy and Gospel," 1891; "The duty of a Public Spirit," 1892; "Gospel from Two Testaments," edited, 1893 ; Droysen's "Outlines of the Principles of History," translation, 1893 ; " Eternal Words and Other Sermons," 1894; " Wealth and Moral Law," 1894; " An honest Dollar," with seven other essays on Bimetallism, 1894; "History of the United States," two volumes, 1894, and " History of the United States in the Last Quarter Century," now in course of publication in Scribner's Magazine. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Re- public, the Loyal Legion, the Delta Upsilon Frater- nity, the Massachusetts Military Historical Society and the Rhode Island Historical Society. In poli- tics he is an Independent Republican, always in- clined to a liberal interpretation of the constitution and believing in a positive foreign policy; is an ardent international bimetallist ; favors a low tariff as a general policy, but a high and even prohibitive tariff against foreign monoplies, and free trade, if necessary, as a defence against home monopolies. He married, November 25, 1870, Miss Ella Anna Allen ; they have one son : Guy Ashton, born July 18, 1873.
BAILEY, GEORGE CROSS, physician and surgeon, was born in Northampton, England, October 20, 1842, son of Samuel and Mary (Cross) Bailey. He was brought by his parents to America when three years of age. They settled in Unadilla, Otsego county, New York, where he received as complete an education as the school facilities of that place permitted. He commenced the study of medicine at the age of seventeen with Dr. Joseph Sweet of Unadilla and Dr. George W. Avery of Norwich, New York. In 1863 he enlisted in the Eighty-ninth Regiment New York Volunteers, and passed an ex- amination as hospital steward. He acted as regi- mental surgeon until the close of the war, and was with his regiment at the surrender of General Lee
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
at Appomattox. In 1865 he entered the Department of Medicine of the University of New York, and in 1866 the Long Island College Hospital. He com- menced the practice of medicine in Andover, Ash-
GEO, C. BAILEY.
tabula county, Ohio. He subsequently returned to Delaware county, near his old home, continuing the practice of his profession there until 1879, when he removed to Westerly, R. I., where he has since re- mained in successful and remunerative practice. He is a member of Franklin Lodge, No. 20, A. F. and A. M .; Palmer Chapter, No. 28, Royal Arch Masons ; Narragansett Commandery, No. 27, Knights Templar, and Hella Temple N. M. S., Texas. He married, April 6, 1867, Miss Lavantia Case ; they have one daughter, Mary Ada Bailey.
BARNARD, CHARLES ALONZO, homœopathic phy- sician, was born in Milledgeville, Ga., August 16, 1843, son of William H. and Nancy C. (Perry) Bar- nard. He is descended from Peregrine White, the first white child born in New England. His family is connected with the Paine and Aldrich families, of English descent, both of which have coats of arms. He received his early education in the public schools of Providence, and graduated from the scientific de- partment of the high school in 1864. He received
his early business training with the extensive firm of Mead, Lacy & Co., New York, with whom he was shipping clerk from 1864 to 1868; at the close of the war the firm ranked second or third in the country as wholesale grocers and government contractors. During the civil war he was First Lieutenant in Com- pany D First Regiment Rhode Island Militia, in 1863. In June 1868 he went West on account of his health, and settled in Kansas. Owing to two visita- tions of grasshoppers, drought and floods, followed by the financial panic of 1873, the loss of his wife after an illness of five days, and the destruction of his house by fire, he abandoned Kansas and returned to the East. He determined to adopt medicine as his profession, and graduated from the Medical School of the University of New York, March 20, 1879. In 1879 he settled in Centerdale, R. I., where he has secured a large practice. He is Visit- ing Physician of the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Hospital and a member of the Board of Trustees. He was elected President of the Board of Health of the town of Johnston in 1892, and is Medical Ex- aminer for the Fourth District of Providence County,
CHAS. A. BARNARD.
comprising the towns of North Providence and Smithfield. He was President of the Medico-Legal Society for two years, from July 1891 to July 1893. He was President of the Rhode Island Homeopathic
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
Society for three years, from January 1890 to Janu- ary 1893, the longest term ever held by any indi- vidual. He is a member of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, and of the New York Medico-Legal Society. He is a charter member of Narragansett Lodge, A. O. U. W., and was its first medical examiner. Dr. Barnard has engaged, as a recrea- tion, in breeding blooded horses, and he has some of the most highly bred horses in the country. He has taken no part in politics and has always refused public office. He joined the church at the age of twenty-one and has always been an ardent member of some church ; he has selected the church located where he has lived, seeking to help the people of his own community, and caring more for the sub- stance than the form of his own religion. He has been trustee and treasurer of the Free Baptist Church of Johnston, and member of the Executive Board of the Rhode Island Free Baptist Associa- tion, and was twice elected President of the Rhode Island Free Baptist Social Union. He married, November 29, 1866, Matilda P., widow of Rev. Rob- ert Roberts of Brooklyn, who died September 13, 1875 ; they had children : William H. and Ethel- wyn N. September 6, 1881, he married Miss Eliz- abeth T. Luther, daughter of Henry G. Luther of Providence ; they had children : Luther, Edith, Mary Brownell and Clinton Barnard; she died December 31, 1889. On June 9, 1892, he was again married, to Adelaide R. Mowry, daughter of the late John A Mowry of Smithfield, R. I.
BARROWS, EDWIN, President of Insurance Companies, was born in Norton, Mass., January 24, 1834, son of Albert and Harriet (Ide) Barrows. He received his early education in the common schools and at Peirce Academy, Middleboro, Mass. He entered Yale College and graduated in the class of 1857. After leaving college he taught a private school in Norton, and was a bookkeeper for several years for Taylor, Symonds & Co., wholesale dry- goods, of Providence. Under President Lincoln's call for nine-months' men he enlisted as a private in the Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, and on going into Camp Joe Hooker, at Middle- boro, was appointed Quartermaster-Sergeant. He served under Gen. Banks in Louisiana until honor- ably discharged after about a year's service. In December 1868, he was elected Secretary and Treasurer of the Firemen's Mutual Insurance Com- pany, and of the Union Mutual Fire Insurance
Company. In 1880, he was elected President and Treasurer of the two companies, and has held those offices since that time. The business has steadily increased from year to year until at the present time more than eighty million dollars' worth of property is protected by the policies of the two companies. He is a Director of the First National Bank, Providence, and Treasurer of The Rhode
EDWIN BARROWS.
Island Bible Society. He has not taken any part in public affairs, but in politics he is a Republican. He married, August 20, 1868, Miss Harriet E. Armington, daughter of Dr. George B. Armington, of Pittsford, Vt; they have children: Edwin Armington, Mary Tomlinson, Anne Ide and Albert Armington Barrows.
BROWN, DANIEL RUSSELL, Governor of Rhode Island 1892-95, was born in Bolton, Conn., March 28, 1848, the son of Arba Harrison and Harriet Marilla (Dart) Brown. His early years were spent on his father's farm and in attendance at the dis- trict school. He received his final school education at an academy at Manchester, Conn., and in school at Hartford. After graduation he entered the em- ploy of a hardware merchant in Rockville, Conn., and two years later became head salesman of a
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
large hardware establishment in Hartford. In 1870 he removed to Providence where he took charge of the mill-supply store of Cyrus White. He soon formed a partnership with William Butler
D, RUSSELL BROWN.
& Son, who purchased Mr. White's business and formed the firm of Butler, Brown & Company. In 1877, on the demise of Mr. Butler, Mr. Brown formed the firm of Brown Bros. & Co., consisting of himself, his brother Col. H. Martin Brown, and Charles H. Child, which is now the largest mill- supply establishment in the country. His business relations include banking and other financial enter- prises, and he is Vice-President of the City Savings Bank, President of the Old Colony Co-operative Bank, and holds other offices of business importance and responsibility. He early took an interest in mu- nicipal and state affairs, and was elected to the Common Council of Providence in 1880, serving for four years. He declined a nomination for Mayor in 1886. In 1888 he was Presidential Elector on the Republican ticket. In 1892 he was elected Governor of Rhode Island, receiving a majority of the votes, the first time any candidate had done so since the extension of the franchise. He was re-nominated in 1893 and held over on account of dispute between the two houses of the General Assembly in regard to the counting of the
votes. In 1894 he again received the nomination of the Republican party and was elected by a plurality of over sixty-five hundred, receiving the largest vote ever cast for a Governor of Rhode Island. He is a member of the Young Men's Christian Association, the Art, Athletic, Advance, Talma, West Side, Pomham and Providence Press clubs, also of the Board of Trade, Business Men's Association, Rhode Island Historical Society, Sons of American Revolution, Rhode Island Art In- stitute, President of the Bethany Home, and member of the Norfolk Club, Boston, and many other social and fraternal organizations. He stands high in the rank of the Masonic order and has served in its most important offices. He married Miss Isabel Barrows, October 14, 1874; they have three children : Milton Barrows, Isabel Russell and Hope Caroline Brown.
BROWN, COL. H. MARTIN, merchant and manu- facturer, Providence, was born in Bolton, Conn., April 28, 1850, son of Arba Harrison and Harriet
H. MARTIN BROWN.
(Dart) Brown. He comes of Revolutionary ances- try and his father was a prosperous farmer in Bolton and afterwards in Manchester, Conn. He received his early education in the public schools of Bolton
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
and at the high school in Rockville, Conn. At the age of sixteen he entered the drygoods house of the Hon. E. Steven Henry of Rockville, Conn., and five years later was admitted as a partner. In December 1887, the firm of Henry & Brown was dissolved by mutual consent. January 1, 1888, he entered into partnership with his brother, ex-Governor D. Russell Brown, and Charles H. Child under the firm name of Brown Brothers & Co., which does a large and prosperous business in mill supplies. Mr. Brown is a Director in the National Ring Traveler Company, the Equitable Fire and Marine Insurance Company, of Providence, and the Union Belt Company of Fall River, Mass. He was elected a member of the City Council from the Ninth Ward in 1890. He was appointed Colonel and Chief of Staff by Governor Brown and served in that capacity from 1892 to 1895. He is a member of the Adolphoi Lodge, A. F. & A. M., St. John's Commandery, Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, also the Hope, Pomham, West Side and Congregational clubs, and the Providence Athletic Association In politics he is a Republican. He married, February 9, 1875, Miss Annie W., daughter of G. L. North of Rockville, Conn; they have two children : Marion N. and A. Helen Brown.
BARSTOW, GEORGE EAMES, manufacturer, was born in Providence, November 19, 1849, son of Amos Chafee and Emeline Mumford (Eames) Barstow. The Barstow family came from the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, and settled in Hanover, Mass., in 1636. His father, Amos C. Barstow, was one of the most prominent men in the city, in business, religious and public affairs, an ex-Mayor, and the holder of many important positions of trust. He received his education in the public schools and in Mowry & Goff's Classical School. He began his business career at seventeen years of age, acquiring a thorough knowledge of textile manufacturing, and receiving a complete training in business affairs. Besides his successful business career, he has taken an active part in municipal, state and church affairs, and in public education. He was fourteen years a member of the School Committee, and for one year its President. He was for four years a member of the Common Council, and was elected a Representative in the General Assembly in 1894-95, and 1895-96. He took an active part in the forma- tion of the Fourth Ward Republican Club, and for the past four years has been its President. He is a
member of the Rhode Island Historical Society Sons of the American Revolution, the Philadel- phia Society for University Extension, and a mem- ber of the Board of Trustees of Hartford Theological
GEO. E. BARSTOW.
Seminary. He married, October 19, 1871, Miss Drew Symonds ; they have nine children : Caroline Hartwell, George Eames, Jr., Herbert Symonds, Helen Louise, Harold Carleton, Marguerite, Paris, Putnam and Donald Barstow.
BROWN, EDWARD ALVIN, marketman and dairy farmer, was born in Little Compton, R. I., October 22, 1859, son of John C. G. and Maria M. (Brownell) Brown. He is a descendant of Elizabeth Alden, the first white woman born in New England, the daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. He received his early education in the public schools of his native town and at the Friends' School of Providence. He then took a course at Bryant & Stratton's Business College, Providence. His early business career was in connection with his father's firm, John C. G. Brown & Co., of Little Compton. On January 1, 1885, he purchased the business of Benjamin Bateman of Newport, and has continued it since, living in Newport for two years, and then re- moving to Middletown, where he is now carrying on,
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
in connection with the market business, the largest dairy and poultry farm on the island. He has been Senator in the General Assembly from Middletown since 1892, and is a member of the Republican
E. A. BROWN.
State Central Committee. He has been a Director in the National Exchange Bank and of the Island Savings Bank of Newport since 1891, and he is a . member of the Newport Business Men's Association. He married, May 28, 1885, Miss Mabel Tompkins ; they have four children : Eugene Irving, Louise, Lawrence Edward and Pauline Brown.
BUCKLIN, EDWARD CARRINGTON, Treasurer of the Harris Manufacturing Company, Woonsocket, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., August 7, 1850, of Thomas P. and Eliza (Comstock) Bucklin. He is a great-grandson of Captain Thomas Bucklin, who answered the alarm sounded on the 19th of April 1775, and was one of the "Minute Men" of the war of the Revolution. He received his education at the Lyon's grammar school, Providence, boarding school in Vermont, and Mowry & Goff's Classical School of Providence. After graduation he lived for two years on the frontier of Colorado, where he was a member of the Governor's Guard in Denver in 1871. For one and a half years he was in a
commission house in New York, and received a practical training in a cotton mill. In 1878 he was elected Treasurer of the Arkwright Manufact- uring Company, in 1877 Treasurer of the Harris Manufacturing Company, and in 1882 Treasurer of the Interlaken Mills. He is now Treasurer of the Harris Manufacturing Company and the Interlaken Mills, the latter being a reorganization of the Ark- wright Manufacturing Company. He is Vice-Pres- ident of the Providence Land and Wharf Company, and a Director of the National Bank of North America, the Providence Mutual Fire Insurance Company and the Mercantile Mutual Fire Insurance Company. He is a member of the Providence Athletic Association, of the Providence Art Club,
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