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 25
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SAYER HASBROUCK.
for General Montgomery, and was the recipient of a ring and a tract of land from the General's widow. Dr. Hasbrouck's early education was acquired in the public schools of Middletown, and a four years' course in Cook Academy, Havana, N. Y., during 1875-9. In 1879-82 he studied in the Boston University School of Medicine, holding the position of House Surgeon in the College Dis- pensary during part of the course, and graduating with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He then spent two years abroad, principally in London and Dublin, but passing some time in the hospitals of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Paris. He was six months in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, where he received the degree of Licentiate of Midwifery, and was also House Surgeon in St. Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital, Dublin. In London he was Clinical Assistant to
Sir George Lawson, F. R. C. S., at the Royal Lon- don (Moorfields) Ophthalmic Hospital, and to Mr. Hamilton at the Gray's Inn Throat and Ear Hos- pital. Dr. Hasbrouck returned to the United States in June 1884, and opened practice in Providence, R. I., for the special treatment of diseases of the eye and ear. He has written papers on his travels, and has contributed many articles to the ophthal- mic literature of the day, while numerous other interesting and important papers which he has read have appeared in the Transactions of the American Institute of Homoeopathy and the Reports of the
New York State Homoeopathic Society. He holds the position of Ophthalmic and Aural Surgeon to the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Hospital and Provi- dence Dispensary, is a member of the American Institute of Homoeopathy and the New York State Homeopathic Society, and is Vice-President of the Rhode Island State Homoeopathic Society. He is active in various social and charitable organiza- tions, and is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, and of the Holland Society of New York, an association of Knickerbockers whose ancestors came over prior to 1675. Dr. Hasbrouck is a lover of athletics and outdoor sports, and both the Rhode Island Yacht Club and Provi- dence Athletic Association were organized in his office ; he was four or five years President of the Yacht Club and one year its Commodore, and served as President of the temporary organization of the Athletic Association. His residence is at Pawtuxet Neck, four miles out of the city. He was married, September 25, 1889, to Miss Mary Owen Fiske, daughter of John T. Fiske, of Pascoag, R. I. ; they have one child : Fanny Fiske, born December 16, 1890.
HAWES, EDWARD COFFIN, merchant and me- chanic, Providence, and inventor of the widely- known Hawes Steam Trap, was born in Coventry, R. I., December 29, 1833, son of George and Maria (Greene) Hawes. His ancestry is English on both sides. He was educated in the public schools, and attended the Friends' Boarding School in Provi- dence in 1850, and later received a commercial training to fit him for a business career. He was brought up on a farm until the age of sixteen, when he came to Providence and engaged in the fruit and produce business with his father and three brothers, under the firm name of George Hawes & Sons. Later the wholesale grocery business was connected with this. About 1880 Mr. Hawes con-
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ceived an idea to construct a device that would be advantageous to steam users, for the purpose of dis- charging the water of condensation from steam pipes and other appliances where live steam is used. This invention, known as the Hawes Steam Trap, has proved a great success, and is widely known and used throughout the United States and foreign countries. At present Mr. Hawes is engaged solely in the manufacture and sale of steam traps, and in looking after his extensive interests in that connec- tion, having retired from the fruit, produce and grocery business. He is a member of What Cheer Masonic Lodge and of Calvary Commandery Knights Templar, also of Canonicus Lodge of Odd Fellows
EDWARD C. HAWES.
and the Athletic Club of Providence. In politics he is a Republican. He was married in 1874 to Miss Sarah J. Haynes ; they have one child : Alice May Hawes.
HOWARD, HENRY, manufacturer, and Governor of Rhode Island 1873-5, was born in Cranston, R. I., April 2, 1826, son of Jesse and Mary (King) Howard. His paternal ancestry are of the English Howards. On the mother's side he is descended from Gabriel Bernon, the eminent Huguenot refugee, who settled in Rhode Island, and through him from the Bernon family of Rochelle, France. Through
the Bernons and their descendants he has a genealogical record from the year A. D. 1300. He received his early education in the common schools and academies. He first adopted the law as a pro- fession and was admitted to the Providence County bar in 1851. He practiced successfully for six years and then abandoned the profession for the large field of manufacturing and business enterprises in which he has since been engaged in connection with very important and extended operations. He early took an active part in politics and public life. He was Secretary of the Whig State Committee, and on the dissolution of the party took an effective part in the formation of the Republican party. He was a Delegate to the National Convention which nomi- nated Fremont for the Presidency in 1856, and also to the one which nominated Hayes in 1876. He was elected a member of the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1856-57, was a Presidential Elector in 1872, and in 1873 was elected Governor of Rhode Island and re-elected in 1874. He was Expert Commissioner to the Paris Exposition in 1878, ap- pointed by President Hayes. He has repeatedly declined nomination for political office on account of the pressure of his business occupations. In military affairs he has been a Captain in the corps of the Providence Marine Artillery, and was a Colo- nel on the personal staff of Gov. William H. Hoppin. He is President of the Harris Manufac- turing Company, and late President of the Arming- ton & Sims Engine Company, the Providence Tele- phone Company and the Pintsch Gas Company. Governor Howard is a lucid and forceful writer upon public questions and topics of the time, and contributions from his ready pen have graced and enlivened the pages of various newspapers and peri- odicals, where they have invariably commanded thoughtful and widespread attention. He was for some years a member of the Franklin Lyceum and at one time its President. In 1873 he received the honorary degree of A. M. from Brown University. He was married, September 30, 1851, to Miss Cath- arine Greene Harris, daughter of Elisha Harris, a former Governor of Rhode Island ; they have three children : Jessie H., wife of Edward C. Bucklin, Elisha H. and Charles T. Howard.
JORDAN, JULES, musical director and composer, was born in Willimantic, Conn., November 10, 1850, son of Lyman and Susan (Beckwith) Jordan. He is of early colonial ancestry, his progenitors on
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the maternal side having been the first settlers of New London, Conn .; his father's people were all Rhode Islanders, and their old homestead is located at Greene, R. I. The subject of this sketch attended the public school in Willimantic until sixteen years old. Always interested in music, and naturally pos- sessed of musical talents of a high order, he had but small opportunity for cultivation until he re- moved to Providence in 1870, where his fine tenor voice secured him a position in the choir of Grace Church and made him known in musical circles. He was thus enabled to commence study in earnest, and has since devoted himself exclusively to the practice of the art which his tastes and special abili- ties led him to adopt as a life profession. He
JULES JORDAN.
studied thoroughly the cultivation of the voice, in this country with George L. Osgood of Boston, and in Europe under William Shakespeare in London and Signor Sbriglia in Paris. While abroad he had an exceptionally attractive offer to go upon the operatic stage, but he declined, much against the advice and wishes of Signor Sbriglia, preferring to pursue his own plan of work already well begun in Providence, to which city he returned at once upon the completion of his studies. As a teacher, con- ductor and composer, Mr. Jordan has become recog- nized throughout the country as at the head of his
profession. He was choirmaster of Grace Church, Providence, for thirteen years, and from its organi- zation in 1880 has been the conductor of the Arion Club, a musical society that has won fame through- out New England and beyond. He has given in- struction to many hundreds of pupils, and has written a great number of songs, choruses and other musical compositions, many of which are widely known and have acquired a well-merited popularity. Early in his career Mr. Jordan came into promi- nence as an oratorio and concert singer, and he has appeared with success in most of the larger cities of the country. He was chosen by the late Dr. Damrosch to create the role of Faust in Berlioz's great " Le Damnation de Faust " at its first per- formance in New York, February 14, 1880; in this he made a remarkable success, and he has sung the part often since with great acceptance. Among the better known of his musical compositions are " Ny- dia's Love Song ; " " Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes ; " " If on the Meads ; " " Bedouin's Prayer ; " " Love's Reward ; " "Sleep, Beloved ; " " Daffo-
dils ; " " Down by the Brook in Maytime ; " : "' " Ring Out, Wild Bells ; " " Forging the Plow ; " " A Life Lesson ; " " Invocation ; " " Love's Philosophy ; " "Love's Sunshine ; " " Love's Confidence ; " " Stay by and Sing ; " " My Laddie " and " A Dutch Lullaby, " also " Wind Swept Wheat," for mixed chorus and orchestra, with tenor solo, and " A Night Service," a cantata, for mixed chorus and orchestra, with soprano and bass solos. His sacred composi- tions include " The Lost Sheep," tenor solo and chorus ; " The Sower," alto solo and chorus ; " Tan- tum Ergo," bass solo and chorus ; " Panis Angeli- cus," "I Am the Vine," and numerous others which have found much favor with church choirs and choral societies. Among his later works are a fine setting of Whittier's patriotic ballad, “ Barbara Frietchie," for soprano, chorus and orchestra, and a national hymn, " Great Western Land." His last work, just completed (April 1896), is a romantic opera in three acts, " Rip Van Winkle," the libretto as well as the music being written by Dr. Jordan. In June 1895 Brown University conferred upon Mr. Jordan the honorary degree of Doctor of Music, the first time the degree was ever conferred by this institution. In 1892 he was strongly urged to remove to New York, where a position was offered him in the National Conservatory of Music, but he declined for the sake of his interests in Providence. Although fully occupied for years in the various branches of his profession, Dr. Jordan's field of labor
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is continually extending, particularly in the line of musical conducting, for which he is especially equipped and peculiarly adapted, and in which he has had the greatest success.
KINNERNEY, REV. HENRY FRANCIS, Pastor of St. Joseph's Church, Pawtucket, was born near Mountrath, Queen's County, Ireland, January 26, 1846, son of John and Betty (Whalen) Kinnerney. He came to America in September 1852, and in 1861, at the age of fifteen, entered St. Charles Col- lege, Maryland, the nursery of so many learned and zealous priests. In 1863 he entered Niagara Uni- versity, finishing his classical course at that institu-
H. F. KINNERNEY,
tion, and obtaining first honors in his class. He then made his course in philosophy at Montreal College, where in 1866 he was crowned by the Governor-General of Canada, having taken the high- est honors. Upon the completion of his studies, December 18, 1870, he was ordained to the priest- hood by Bishop Bourget, and at once entered upon his missionary life. He had charge of the Foun- tain-street Academy, or preparatory school for the diocese of Hartford, until July 1872, when he was appointed pastor of Sandwich, and of all Cape Cod and adjacent islands, embracing Nantucket and
Martha's Vineyard. After two years' service in this field he was transferred to the pastorate of the new parish of St. Joseph's at Pawtucket, where he has since labored with great success. St. Joseph's parish, set off from the old parish of St. Mary's, in 1873, and embracing the territory on the east side of the river from Cottage Street to the East Provi- dence line, was struggling under a heavy debt, $52,000, incurred in purchasing a site and laying the foundations and corner stone for the new church, and with no means in sight for completing the edi- fice or even for carrying forward the work another stage. The burdensome indebtedness, the especial money stringency of the times, and a laity composed mainly of people in humble circumstances practi- cally without ready means in the hard times then prevailing, combined to make the outlook for the young parish anything but promising. But Father Kinnerney's energy, skill and persistency proved equal to the emergency. He was appointed to the pastorate January 26, 1874, and held his first ser- vice on the first Sunday in February, in the Old Town Hall on School Street. Under his minis- trations a new interest was awakened, the courage of the parishioners revived, money began to flow in, and on April I the basement was completed and mass was celebrated in the new church for the first time. The pastor's labors met with continued suc- cess, and the church debt was rapidly reduced, $27,000 being raised the first year, while the con- struction of the edifice went on. A church fair held in the first year of his pastorate, attended by all the civic and military societies of the state, was instrumental in raising $10,000, of which amount $3,000 was contributed by Hon. George H. Wilson of Providence. By 1878 the pastor had brought the financial problem of the parish within sight of solu.ion On the first Sunday in October of that year the church was dedicated with great ceremony, the collection upon that occasion amounting to $1,500, and in 1891 the belfry and tower were finished. In 1887 Father Kinnerney purchased the French estate for educational purposes, and in 1892 was commenced the erection of a convent and school buildings on the grounds, completed in February 1895 at a cost of $50,000. The old French house was also transformed into a home for the Sisters of Mercy. The school now has an attendance of four hundred and fifty pupils. So greatly has St. Joseph's flourished under Father Kinnerney's pas- torate, that notwithstanding the detachment from his parish of the mission districts of Dodgeville,
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Hebronville and Rumford, he still numbers upwards of three thousand people among his parishioners, and in this time the church has raised, exclusive of the pastor's support, a sum amounting to about half a million dollars. Not merely in religious affairs has Father Kinnerney been the adviser and guide of his flock ; as a public spirited citizen he is noted among Protestants and Catholics alike for his deep interest in matters of public moment, and has taken an active part in many local and national move- ments. He is known as one of the ablest of public speakers, and as President of the Rhode Island Temperance Union, has spoken in that capacity to full houses from nearly every pulpit and platform in the state. In 1878 he was elected a member of the Public School Board of Pawtucket, and served three years. He was one of the speakers at the great mass meeting to welcome Parnell and Dillon in 1879. In 1885 the Grand Army of the Republic of the state held memorial services in St. Joseph's Church, the first time in the history of the society that such services were ever held in a Catholic church, upon which occasion the pastor delivered the oration. He also delivered memorial orations upon General Grant and General Garfield, at the instance of the G. A. R. of the state, the Grant oration being published by the society in pamphlet form. Father Kinnerney visited England, Ireland and France in the summer of 1882, and attended the unveiling of the O'Connell monument by Charles S. Parnell. In November 1884 he attended the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, as Theo- logian for the diocese of Providence. In June 1895 he again visited Europe, making a tour of the continent, including Rome, Naples, Switzerland and other parts. On December 18, 1895, occurred his silver anniversary, commemorating his twenty-fifth year of priesthood ; it was characteristic of him that he should refuse upon that occasion to sanction any public celebration of his sacerdotal jubilee. Father Kinnerney was in 1893 elected President of the Board of Directors of the Providence Visitor, which office he still holds.
KNAPP, ALBERT MASON, M. D., Providence, was born in Lyman, N. H., October 14, 1842, son of Dr. Horace and Lucretia (Dickenson) Knapp. His father was a native of Maine, born in Kingfield, and was a school teacher in early life, afterward a Universalist minister, and subsequently a physician and lecturer upon medical and other subjects. His
mother was a daughter of a New Hampshire farmer. His boyhood was passed to quite an extent in Maine, mostly at Kendall's Mills, but the greater part of his early education was acquired in the pub- lic schools of Racine, Wis. He attended the Nor- mal School of that state, and taught school two years, after which he entered the Medical Depart- ment of the University of Michigan, from which he graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1865. Following graduation he practiced in Racine, Wis., for a time, and then in Chicago, until the great fire in 1871, when having suffered the loss of his office and much other property by the conflagra- tion, he came East and accepted an offer to asso-
ALBERT M. KNAPP.
ciate himself with another physician in Lowell, Mass. Remaining there but a short time, he prac- ticed two years in Manchester, N. H., and about 1875 located in Providence, where he has since been established in successful and remunerative practice. Dr. Knapp has served as Medical Exami- ner for several benevolent and fraternal organiza- tions, and is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, and the Providence Medical Association. He was married, in Dubuque, Ia., May 31, 1865, to Miss Kittie A., daughter of Thomas W. Crane, an old resident of Chicago; they have two children : K. Mabel and George H. Knapp.
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KNIGHT, BENJAMIN BRAYTON, manufacturer, and head of the firm of B. B. & R Knight, Provi- dence, was born in Cranston, R. I., October 3, 1813, son of Stephen and Welthan (Brayton) Knight. His early life was spent in assisting his father on the farm, and his educational advantages were limited to occasional terms in the district schools, until he was sixteen years old. At the age of eighteen, in 1831, he entered the Sprague Print Works at Crans- ton and served as an operative until 1833, then he resumed farming for two years. In 1835 he started the initiative movement of his remarkable business career, by purchasing a small building near the Sprague Print Works and opening a general grocery.
B. B. KNIGHT.
Five years later he removed to Providence, and with Olney Winsor and L. E. Bowen, under the firm name of Winsor, Knight & Company, engaged in the wholesale and retail grocery business. In 1842 he purchased Mr. Bowen's interest, and in 1847 his brother Jeremiah became associated with him, under the style of B. B. Knight & Company. Soon afterwards Mr. Knight extended his operations by engaging in the flour and grain trade with D. T. Penniman, under the name of Penniman, Knight & Company, and a year later bought out Mr. Penni- man and continued alone for about four years, doing a large and successful business. In 1849 he sold his grocery interest to his partner and brother,
Jeremiah, and in 1852 sold a half interest in his flour and grain business to his brother Robert, at the same time purchasing of the latter a half interest in the Pontiac Mill and Bleachery, and establishing the firm of B. B. & R. Knight, under which name the constantly and now marvellously extended manufacturing and mercantile interests of the brothers have ever since been carried on. They soon retired from the flour and grain trade to de- vote their entire time to the manufacture and sale of cotton goods, and the immense business which they have built up from small beginnings is now the largest of its kind in the world. They own and operate under various corporate names no less than twenty-one cotton mills - excepting only a limited interest owned by outsiders in two of the mills - in nearly as many different and widely scattered villages of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, with an aggre- gate capacity of eleven thousand looms and over four hundred thousand spindles, and employing nearly seven thousand operatives. The principal of these mills are : In Rhode Island, the Natick Mills at Natick, Royal and Valley Queen Mills at River Point, Arctic Mill at Arctic, Pontiac Mill and Bleachery at Pontiac, White Rock Mill at Westerly, Clinton Mill at Woonsocket, Grant Mill at Providence, Lippitt Mill at Lippitt, Fiskeville Mill at Fiskeville, and Jackson Mill at Jackson; and in Massachusetts the Hebron Mill at Hebronville, the Manchaug Mills at Manchaug, the Readville Mill at Readville, and the Dodgeville Mill at Dodgeville. The vast manufacturing property of the Messrs. Knight com- prises fifteen entire villages, absolutely separate and independent from each other as regards their com- munity interests, and includes some seventeen hun- dred or more tenements occupied by employes, besides large tracts of farming lands upon which they conduct extensive operations. Stores are maintained by the corporations in the respective communities, which are conducted upon the same careful system as in the case of the mills, and whose aggregate sales constitute alone a business of exten- sive proportions Independent of all other opera- tions and interests, the Messrs. Knight carry on a mammoth mercantile business, in the sale of the goods of their own manufacture. They have no accounts with commission houses upon which they
can draw, but sell their goods direct to the trade and carry the accounts of all their customers. Their principal store is in Worth Street, New York, and they have branches or agencies in Boston, Phil- adelphia, Baltimore and other cities, the operations
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
of all being directed from their central office in Prov- idence. The firm also own a controlling interest in the Cranston Printing Company at Cranston, formerly the property of the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company, known as among the most extensive works of the kind in the country, and have other large and diversified interests, both as a firm and individually. Mr. B. B. Knight has ren- dered efficient public service as a state legislator and as a member of the city government of Providence. He served as Alderman from the sixth ward in 1865- 66-67, was chairman of the Finance Committee of the Aldermanic Board, and has been twice elected to the General Assembly. He has been President of the Butchers' and Drovers' Bank almost ever since its organization in 1853, and is a Director in several insurance companies and other business organiza- tions and institutions. Mr. Knight was married, in 1842, to Miss Alice W., daughter of Elizur W. Collins of Johnston, R. I., who died February 8, 1850, leaving three children, all now deceased. He married, second, in December 1851, Phebe A., daughter of Abel Slocum of Pawtuxet, R. I .; they have had three children : Alice Spring, Henry Eugene (deceased) and Adelaide Maria Knight.
KNIGHT, ROBERT, manufacturer, and member of the firm of B. B. & R. Knight, Providence, was born in Old Warwick, R. I., January 8, 1826, son of Stephen and Welthan (Brayton) Knight. In his childhood his father moved his family to Cranston, and the lad was put to work in the Cranston Print Works when but eight years of age. At ten years he became an employe in the cotton mill at Coventry, owned and operated by Elisha Harris, where he remained until he was seventeen, part of the time working fourteen hours a day for $1.25 a week. Early in 1843 he went to Providence and entered the store of his brother Benjamin as clerk. Being desirous of securing an education, he fol- lowed this occupation but two years, and then, through the aid of a friend, spent the eighteen months following in the Pawcatuck Academy at Westerly. He next taught a district school in the town of Exeter four months, and in 1846 took a position as clerk in the factory store of John H. Clark at Arnold's Bridge, now Pontiac. Mr. Clark was subsequently elected United States Senator, at which time he leased his cotton mill and bleachery to Zachariah Parker and Mr. Knight for $5,000 a year, and in October 1850, the firm of Parker &
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