USA > Rhode Island > Memorial encyclopedia of the state of Rhode Island > Part 28
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Albert Sidney Almy was born July 31, 1836, at Little Compton, Rhode Island, a son of Isaac C. and Alice ( Bateman) Almy. He was a member of a very old New England family, founded in this country by one William Amly, who was born in England as early as 1601 and made the trip to the American colonies in 1631, He went to Lynn, Massachusetts, and settled there, purchasing from the Indians a property which he converted from uncleared forest into an excellent farm and which to this day is known as the Almy farm. He returned to England in 1635 and once more made the voyage to the colonies, bringing with him his wife, Audrey (Almond) Almy, and their two children. From him the line of descent to the Mr. Almy of this sketch was as follows: William, the founder; Job, born 1640, died 1684, married Mary Unthank; Job, born 1681, died 1767, married Bridget San-
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ford in 1705; John, born 1720, died 1808; Cook, born 1763, died 1861, married Charlotte Cook; and Isaac Cook, Mr. Almy's father. Isaac Cook Almy was born May 4, 1813, and died September 28, 1868. He was married to Alice Bateman and to them were born four children as follows: Charlotte, wife of James H. Corthell, of Bristol; Albert Sidney; Alice, wife of Charles F. Herreshoff, and Darwin, of whom a sketch appears elsewhere in this work.
The first sixteen years of Albert Sidney Almy's life was passed upon his father's farm where he gained the splendid health that he enjoyed during the remainder of his life and served him so weil through all the arduous labors of his business career. During this period he received his schooling at the district institutions, which at that date were decidedly primitive, but with his characteristic intelligence and industry he made the most of his opportunities and graduated at the end of the final term there with a far better education than that with which many a youth leaves the more advanced schools of to-day. He had already done considerable work helping his father on his farm, but at the age of sixteen he left the parental roof altogether and went to the city of Fall River, Massachusetts, where he apprenticed himself to a carpenter with the intention of learning that trade. With his quickness in grasping detail it did not take him long to become a master of his craft and for a number of years he worked thereat in Fall River, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, and during that time was employed upon many of the largest and handsomest buildings, both business and residential, in the cities. For a number of years he made his home in Providence and identified himself with the affairs of that place to a considerable degree. He joined the police force of the city and also the old volunteer fire department and drove the old Gaspee engine with which in those days they fought the flames. It was in the year 1876 that he removed to Bristol, Rhode Island, which remained his home from that time onward, and there became asso- ciated with the Herreshoff Company. It was here that Mr. Almy's abilities really showed for what they were worth and he rapidly became an expert in the art of shipbuilding and rose correspondingly in position with the great concern. He was finally put in charge of the yacht building department and it was while in this capacity that he superintended the construction of many of the most famous racers of all time among which were a number of the cup defenders, including the "Vigilant." the "Defender," the "Columbia," and the "Constitution." After more than a quarter of a century in association with the Herreshoffs, Mr. Almy retired from active business altogether in 1902. But although he withdrew from his business connections, Mr. Almy was never the man to lead anything even approaching an idle life and con- tinued to take an active part in the affairs of the community of which he was a member. As was but natural under the circumstances he was exceed- ingly fond of yachting and was a prominent member of the Bristol Yacht Club and a member of its house and executive committees.
Mr. Almy married (first) Louisa Bessey, by whom he had one child, Armond B. Almy, who died at the age of four years. Mrs. Almy died Sep- tember 20, 1864. On January 2, 1866, Mr. Almy married (second) Cornelia Knight, a daughter of Jeremiah and Niobe (Arnold) Knight, of Warwick. Born to Mr. and Mrs. Almy were two children as follows: Nora, who be-
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came the wife of Alfred Earl, of Bristol, where they now reside with their two children, Albert and Henry; Alice Bateman, who resides with her mother in Bristol.
With all his talents and the multitude of activities which called them into play, Mr. Almy was essentially a domestic man. He was very retiring, and although he greatly enjoyed the society of his friends he shrank from anything like public office or the kind of political activity that would have brought him into the public eye. Although so uniformly successful and so universally liked because of his sense of justice and generosity by all his business associates, yet his chief happiness was found in the retirement of his own home and the intercourse of his own household. The same qualities that made him a devoted husband and parent also made him a faithful friend, so that of the great number who were originally attracted to him because of his unusual personality there were none who did not remain bound to him by a sense of his sterling worth and simple heart. To his family and to these devoted friends, and further yet, to the citizens of his adopted community, his death is a very real loss and he leaves a gap that it will be difficult indeed to fill. He owned the catboat "Nora," and with that boat won many races, always taking the first prize whenever that boat was entered. The racing of this boat was his one and only hobby.
James Cargill Sivan
T HE ANCESTOR of the Swan family of Rhode Island was Richard Swan, who is of early record in Massachusetts, joining the church at Boston, January 6, 1639. He was a member of the General Court from Rowley in 1666 and for several years thereafter, also serving as a soldier in the In- dian wars. He died May 14, 1678. His first wife and the mother of all his children died in England leaving five sons, Richard, Francis, Robert, Jonathan, John, two daughters, Susan and Sarah. From these sons sprang a numerous and influential family. James Cargill Swan was of the Smithfield, Rhode Island, branch, son of Charles and Marilla (Burlingame) Swan. Charles Swan was a farmer of Smithfield, his wife a native of Gloucester, Rhode Island, a descendant of Roger Bur- lingame who came from England locating first at Stonington, Connecticut, later at Providence, Rhode Island. Part of his farm of five hundred acres is now included within the corporate limits of the city of Providence. Benedict Burlingame, a great-grandson of Roger Burlingame, the founder, was a farmer of Gloucester, Rhode Island, and the ancestor of Marilla (Bur- lingame) Swan. Four sons and two daughters were born to Charles and Marilla (Burlingame) Swan, all now passed to their reward.
James Cargill Swan was born in Smithfield, Rhode Island, September 13, 1826, died in Providence, April 30, 1872. His education was that of the average farmer boy of that period, his school advantages the few months each year spent in the district school. He grew up on the home farm and continued his father's assistant until reaching legal age. He then began working on his own account and until death engaged principally in farming. He, however, at various times assumed contracts of different kinds and con- ducted a general teaming business. But that was incidental, farming being his life employment. He was an attendant of the Baptist church, and in politics a Republican. He was a man of untiring industry, fond of his home and family and bore a high reputation in his community.
Mr. Swan married, October 20, 1846, Saralı E., daughter of Andrew and Susan (Spencer) Williams, a descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Providence. Andrew Williams and his wife Susan (Spencer) Williams, both born in Rhode Island, were the parents of ten children, two of whom are living at the present time (1916) : Sarah E., widow of James Cargill Swan, now residing upon the farm near Providence, and John Williams, of Providence. James C. and Sarah E. Swan were the parents of three chil- dren: Charles Andrew, a railroad man now residing in Boston, married Alice Phillips, and has one child, Mable Williams Polleys; William B., now managing the old home farm with his widowed mother, married Almena A. Marshall; Sarah Elizabeth, married Cyrus W. Place, a farmer, and has a son, Willard Leroy Place.
Philip White
Philip White
L IKE STEPPING into a different world is it to follow the varied career of Philip White, late of Providence and Cran- ston, Rhode Island, surrounded as it was with the circum- stances and associations and even the material environment of a serener and more gracious age, now passed away. To speak his name at once recalls that of Benjamin Franklin Hopkins and the beautiful old tavern which the two men, one after the other, kept on Westminster street, Providence. No one who has been fortunate enough to stop in the place will easily forget the charm- ing old-world atmosphere that he entered in crossing the threshold of the home-like old tavern or the warm welcome accorded to all by Mr. Hopkins and then by his son-in-law, Mr. White. There are those still living who have tasted of the good cheer and hearty welcome provided there back in the days when most of the travel between Boston and Providence was done on horse- back or in carriage, and those good old times have left an irradicable mark upon the old place that seems to tell of the more substantial, if ruder, com- forts of those days, of stout potations and courtley manners, of fair faces and warm hearts. Mr. White died in Cranston, November 1, 1886, and Mr. Hopkins many years before that, yet at the birth of the latter the tavern was already of substantial age for it dates back to Colonial days.
Philip White was born in Mansfield, Massachusetts, November 3, 1822, one of the large family of thirteen children born to Pardon and Lydia White, of that town. The father was a farmer and the lad spent the carly years of his life in the wholesome environment of farm life with his brothers and sisters. This healthful childhood was not to last a great while, however, for the family was in very poor circumstances and it became necessary for the children to take a hand in their own support. One by one the brothers all found employment in the woolen mills of that neighborhood, the family re- moving to Providence to enable them the better to find work and Philip was but eight years of age when he followed the example of his elders and secured his first work in a mill at Newport. But Philip White was not of the kind that surrenders easily to circumstances; he was ambitious to learn and took every opportunity to do so, studying a great deal by himself and even attending night school so that his handicap in this matter was more than made up and people meeting him in after life and finding an unusually well educated man would have had no idea of the very limited advantages that he enjoyed as a boy. He was of a type of manhood familiar to us all, ever ready to try the new project and possessed of the intelligence and per- sonality to succeed in all that he undertook. He was still a very young man when by dint of hard work and great frugality he had saved up sufficient capital to start in a business of his own and he accordingly bought a black- smith shop in Providence, a kindly fortune ordering it so that it should stand directly opposite the Hopkins Hotel. At about this time, however, some- thing intervened which postponed the association of Mr. White with the old
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tavern from progressing further for the time. This was the excitement in- cident to the discovery of gold in California in 1849. Mr. White joined the great throng which started out to the Far West on this adventurous quest from which so many never returned. Conditions in that part of the country were scarcely more than savage and anyone who went there was sure to need all his courage and wit to extricate himself from the waiting perils. But Mr. White possessed both these qualities in plenteous store, the life pleased him for a time with its romance and freedom from the conventions of a more settled community, and he remained there four years, from 1849 to 1853. In the latter year, however, he returned to the East and took up his black- smith's trade in Providence.
In the year 1854 he married the daughter of Mr. Hopkins and then bought his hotel, which the other was getting somewhat too elderly to care for. From the outset Mr. White maintained the tradition of the old place, superintending in person the service, greeting his guests in the same whole- souled, warin manner they had grown used to in Mr. Hopkins and in all things keeping up its good name and reputation. Mrs. White had inherited shortly after her marriage a fine farm of one hundred acres from her mother and this Mr. White superintended in addition to managing the hotel. The farm was situated in Cranston, Rhode Island, and the Whites made their home on it for a part of each year for ten years or more. Mr. White, towards the latter part of this period, was employed in building a handsome house for himself and family at No. 1289 Elmwood avenue, Cranston, and when it was completed they moved into it and there Mr. White died about three years later.
As has already been remarked, Mr. White was united in marriage with Emeline E. Hopkins, native of Rhode Island and a daughter of Benjamin Franklin and Patia B. (Randall) Hopkins, well-known and highly respected residents. To Mr. and Mrs. White two children were born: William L., who died in infancy, and William Smith, who died in 1888 at the age of twenty-three years. Mrs. White survives her husband and resides in her home in Cranston. Mr. Hopkins was a son of Colonel Benjamin F. Hopkins, who was the owner of a tavern at Foster, Rhode Island. It was Colonel Hopkins that bought the old Providence inn from the Gardiners who origin- ally owned it and who in due course of time was succeeded by his son in its ownership and management. Colonel Hopkins purchased it in the year 1831, when a man well advanced in years, and his son began to manage it about 1840, and from that time until the sale of it to Mr. White he was actively in charge of it, being always there in person to see to the comfort of his guests. He became one of the best known figures in the city and one of the most popular, for besides possessing a most attractive and cheerful personal- ity his benevolences and charities were very large and widely distributed. His wife, Patia B. (Randall) Hopkins, before her marriage was a very re- markable woman, thrifty and far-seeing, and it is beyond question that to her is due a great measure of her husband's success. They were both unique figures in the life of Providence and although they have now been dead for many years the memory of their many good deeds still lives in the minds and hearts of the older citizens. Mr. Hopkins had a very large farm near Scitu-
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ate, Rhode Island, which he conducted for a number of years although he eventually gave up living there and took up his abode in Providence alto- gether. Although so successful as both a farmer and hotel keeper, Mr. Hopkins' chief talent was his remarkable skill in wood carving. For this he had the utmost devotion and when it is considered with what primitive tools he wrought the various articles of his craft that came from his hand his work is nothing less than extraordinary. He carved, principally with his pocket knife, in a little shop back of the hotel many objects of beauty, espe- cially a great variety of furniture, many articles of which are still in the pos- session of Mrs. White who values them most highly. How elaborate was his work may be faintly realized when it is said that in one piece of furniture which he inlaid there were no less than nineteen hundred and twenty-seven pieces of wood introduced into its composition. A complete set of minature farm tools, perfect in every detail, was another work which bore witness not only to his skill in his craft but to the fact that his heart often turned with a keen longing back to the rural life that he had learned to love so deeply in his youth. Indeed he often thought fondly of the old farm and longed to return to it. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins were the parents of four children as follows: Emeline E., now Mrs. White, of Auburn; Angeline A., who became the wife of Draper C. Smith, of Providence, and is now deceased; William R., also deceased; and Susamey P., a resident of Auburn, Rhode Island.
R I-Vol I -- 17
Prran Caft
H ALF A CENTURY ago the valuable life of Orray Taft closed, but the work that he performed and the institutions he founded live and in the prosperity of bank, mill, railroad and corporation his memory is kept green. He was one of the strong men of his day, foremost in the movements to in- crease the material prosperity of Providence, and a leader in good works. Gone are the men of that period, the Spragues, the Browns and men of that class, but among them all there was no grander, more commanding figure than Orray Taft, the second president of the People's Savings Bank, succeeding the senior Governor Sprague. He was an able business man, his natural qualities sharpened and developed through a wide course of dealing in the South, his operations in cotton necessitating annual trips either by himself or a representative through the cotton belt that he might make his contracts for his mills with a full knowledge of crop conditions and prospective prices. He was an important factor in the cotton market all his life, and no man was even his peer in personal knowledge of cotton dealing. Present day cotton manufacturers have little knowledge of anti-bellum conditions; of the days preceding railroads, when the Southern planter was a king, and the Northern cotton manufacturer his vassal. But Orray Taft understood them, met them at their own homes and possessed their perfect confidence. He was but a young man when he first went South to trade and deal in cotton and until the war he continued an active factor in the cotton trade. The great Civil War brought about new and strange conditions in the South and in the cotton trade and but a few months before that conflict ended he was gathered to his fathers at the age of seventy-two years.
He was of ancient ancestry, tracing to Robert Taft, born about 1640 in Ireland, and died in Mendon, Massachusetts, February 8, 1725. The Taft families of America descend from Robert and Matthew Taft, both of whom came from Ireland and settled in Mendon. The name in Ireland was spelled Taaffe, and is not found in Scotland, and in England only descendants of the Irish family are found. Sir William Taaffe was a knight of Protestant faith, and was a grantee at the time of the Scotch emigration to Ulster Province, Ireland, by order of King James, and in 1610 he had a grant of one thousand acres in the parish of Castle Rahen, County Cavan.
Robert Taft, the American ancestor, bought a large quantity of land around Mendon pond, becoming one of the largest land owners in that neighborhood. He was a member of the first Board of Selectmen of the organized town of Mendon, and was on the committee to build a house for the minister. He and his sons built the first bridge across the Mendon river, and his sons built the second one. One of his sons, Captain Joseph Taft, was captain of militia, and one of the most prominent men of Uxbridge which was ever the seat of this branch. From that time until the present, members of the Taft family have been leaders in public, military, business
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and professional life, the highest office in the United States having been held by a descendant of Robert Taft through his son, Captain Joseph Taft, and grandson, Captain Peter Taft.
Orray Taft was of the sixth American generation, son of Marvel Taft, born February 6, 1763, and his wife Ruth, born .October 2, 1762. Orray Taft was born at the homestead in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, April 9, 1793, and died in Providence, Rhode Island, January 27, 1865. He spent his youth at Uxbridge, attended the public schools and early entered into mercantile life. When a young man he made his first trip South carrying such supplies as the Southern needs demanded, exchanging them for cotton which was shipped to New England mills or abroad. He made continuous trips of this nature until 1829, then located in Providence, Rhode Island, where he continued a cotton factor on a large scale. He was interested in the Waure- gan Cotton Mill as one of the organizers and owners, and with that affili- ation added a manufacturers to his trader's interest in the cotton trade. He dealt heavily and successfully in cotton and was as much at home on a South- ern cotton plantation as at his mill in Providence. He was one of the organ- izers of the People's Savings Bank of Providence, and when Governor Wil- liam Sprague, the first president of the bank, laid down the reins of manage- ment Mr. Taft succeeded him as chief executive. He was also heavily inter- ested in the Providence Gas Company, and in the Worcester Railroad which he helped to organize and served as president. He was a man of fine intel- lectual qualities-a Taft heritage-possessed a sound judgment, but always considered a question well before giving an opinion or decision. While he served one year in the Rhode Island Legislature he had little taste for public life but was emphatically a business man. Yet he was very public-spirited and progressive, working for the upbuilding of Providence in every possible way. His life was a success from whatever angle viewed, and in his day and generation there were none who excelled him in honorable usefulness. He was an attendant of the Beneficient Congregational Church and aided in all good works of church and charity.
Mr. Taft married, September 24, 1821, Deborah Keith, born at Grafton, Massachusetts, daughter of Royal and Deborah (Adams) Keith, both of Northbridge, Massachusetts, and a granddaughter of Simeon and Rebecca Keith.
John Milton Hathaway
T HE artistic talent displayed by Mr. Hathaway even in boy- hood gave promise of a brilliant future, but it was many years ere circumstances allowed him to give rein to his talents, and even then he was compelled to allow a great deal of most creditable work go out under the name of the firm by which he was employed. But the canvases he signed and sold are sufficient to identify him with his work, and as an artist he lives in those canvases now much more highly valued than when he disposed of them. Paintings from his brush are to be found in many homes and private art galleries, and so long as men shall admire the beauties of nature as portrayed by a master's brush, just so long will John Milton Hathaway bear an honored name as a creator of the beautiful and true in art. He was a son of John and Betsey Hathaway.
John Milton Hathaway was born near Fall River in 1830, died at his home in Providence, Rhode Island, July 7, 1901. He was educated in the public schools, and as a boy evidenced a fondness for drawing and illustra- tion as well as a decided talent. He was but a boy when his school years ended and he began working in a nail mill, an occupation as far as possible removed from his natural inclinations or liking. But that was his father's business and he had no choice but to obey the parental law. But he soon broke away from the thraldom of the nail mill and secured employment with a decorative painter, and while not a high form of art he learned the mixing of colors and an expert use of the brush, knowledge which bore fruit in after years. In 1851, at the age of twenty-one, he married and soon afterward moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where his skill and talent found him instant and remunerative employment. He remained in Boston three years working as an ornamental and decorative painter, then moved to Providence which was ever afterward his home.
He at once entered the employ of the well known furniture house, Anthony Dennison & Potter, as their decorative artist, and through the medium of that house his work was made a part of the adornment of many of the most handsome homes in New England. While his decorative and ornamental painting was all done under the name of the house he repre- sented, Mr. Hathaway won high personal reputation as he was well known as the artist responsible for the high decorative value of the work performed. During this period Mr. Hathaway painted many signed canvases that found a ready sale among connoisseurs at a high figure for an unknown artist to obtain. These paintings are to be found in many of the private art galleries of New England and in the homes of art lovers, their value increas- ing as their beauty and their fine artistic quality is better understood and appreciated. Mr. Hathaway remained in the employ of Anthony Dennison & Potter until about three years prior to his death when he retired, being then sixty-eight years of age.
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