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 34
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MATHEWSON, ALMY, proprietor of the Smith- field Granite Company, Providence, was born in Johnston, R. I., in 1842, son of Benjamin O. P. and Mehitable (Willey) Mathewson. He was edu- cated in the public schools, learned the granite-cut-
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ting trade, and has been connected with the granite industry since 1877. In 1886 he came to Providence and established himself in business under the name of the Smithfield Granite Company, which has been very successful and filled many large contracts, and
ALMY MATHEWSON.
which has the reputation of having turned out some of the best building material ever used in the state. Among the buildings for which Mr. Mathewson has furnished granite are those of the Gorham Manufac- turing Company at Elmwood, Providence Central Police Station, Brown & Sharpe Works, Merchant's Freezing and Cold Storage Company's plant, dor- mitory at Brown University, Corliss Steam Engine Works, bridge at Roger Williams Park, Providence Water Works, Pawtucket Water Works, Narragan- sett Electric-Light Station and many others in and around Providence and throughout the state. Mr. Mathewson is a thoroughly practical granite mason of long experience, and possesses an accurate know- ledge of all the requirements of his most exacting patrons. He furnishes estimates on and executes all classes of foundation work for buildings, stone and granite fronts, and cemetery work, also contracts for the erection of granite trimmings for buildings and the heaviest foundations. His company is noted for closely following specifications, and for performing work in the specified time and in a first- class manner. The quarry is situated at Pascoag,
R. I., on the line of the New England Railroad. Mr. Mathewson is a member of the Odd Fellows, the Good Templars and the Free Baptist Church. In politics he is a Prohibitionist. He was married, May 10, 1863, to Miss Rebecca Eddy ; they have six children : Herbert, Irving, Alice, Lester, Lillian and Arthur Mathewson.
McCLOY, JOHN ASWOULD, manufacturing jeweler, Providence, was born in Newburg, New York, July 13, 1844, son of John and Jane (Gwenn) McCloy, and died in Providence, March 7, 1893. He received his early education in the public schools of Providence, graduating from the high school in May 1863, after which he took a business course in Bryant & Stratton's Commercial College in that city. Following his graduation from that institution, in the latter period of the war of the Rebellion he was actively connected with the Quartermaster General's department of the state of Rhode Island. In 1865 he entered the employ of the Fall River Iron Works Company, where he re-
JOHN A. MCCLOY.
mained as bookkeeper until 1870. Soon after, he engaged in the manufacturing jewelry business with his uncle, James W. Gwinn, in Providence, under the firm name of Gwinn & McCloy. Mr. McCloy was the market representative of the concern,
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which carried on a very successful business, their specialty being the manufacture of gold lockets. After a time Mr. McCloy purchased the interest of his partner and carried on the business in his own name, continuing until May 1877, when he retired from manufacturing to devote his whole time to the interests of the Manufacturing Jeweler, a weekly paper published in Providence, devoted to the interests of the jewelry trade, and of which he became Treasurer and Business Manager. Mr. McCloy was elected Major of the United Train of Artillery in May 1884, and he served four years on the School Committee of Providence. He was one of the leading spirits in the formation of the Providence Jewelers' Club, in 1879, was for two years its President and three years a member of its Executive Committee, and since then Secretary until his death in 1893, the club meanwhile, in 1883, having changed its name to the New England Manufacturing Jewelers' Association. He was one of the founders of the Manufacturing Jewelers' Board of Trade, was its first Secretary and subse- quently for many years its Treasurer. He was also a member of What Cheer Masonic Lodge; Olive Branch Lodge of Odd Fellows; Sterling Division, No. 10, Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias ; Sterling Lodge, Knights of Pythias ; Golden Rule Lodge, Knights of Honor ; Unity Council, Royal Arcanum ; What Cheer Assembly, Royal Society of Good Fellows, and Providence Lodge Ancient Order of United Workmen. Mr. McCloy was a very active man in both social and business life, and had many friends, by whom he was greatly missed, on account of his geniality, sociability, kindness of heart, and boundless energy, which made him the life of any company in which he mingled. He was twice married : first, November 26, 1868, to Miss Clara Wardwell, who died November 16, 1877, leaving two children : William Wardwell and John Howard McCloy ; second, April 23, 1884, to Miss Elizabeth C. Chace, by whom he had one child, Beatrice McCloy.
MILLER, HORACE GEORGE, M. D., Providence, was born in Pawtucket (then North Providence), R. I., April 6, 1840, son of Horace and Elizabeth Borden (Monroe) Miller. He comes of old New England stock, being descended on his father's side from Isaac Stearns, who came with Governor Win- throp in 1630, and on the maternal side from John Howland, who came over in the Mayflower. His
carly instruction was chiefly imparted by his uncle, the Rev. Nathaniel Bowen Cook, afterward the well- known Principal of the Bristol, R. I., High School. He prepared for college at the University Gram- mar School of Lyon & Frieze in Providence, and entered Brown University, receiving the degree of A. M. from that institution on graduation in 1860, and becoming resident graduate in 1861. He studied at Harvard Medical School in 1862-5, enrolled as a pupil of the late Dr. Lloyd Morton of Pawtucket, and receiving his degree of M. D. upon graduation. He was house pupil for a time and afterwards Assistant Surgeon at the United States
HORACE G. MILLER.
Marine Hospital in Chelsea, and " Assistant to the Surgeons " at the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. Dr. Miller studied diseases of the eye and ear in Europe during the years 1865-7, and about the first of January 1868 began practice in Providence, where he has since remained, making the above-named branches a specialty of his profession. At the opening of the Rhode Island Hospital in 1868 Dr. Miller was appointed Ophthalmic and Aural Surgeon, and has retained this connection with that institution ever since ; he is now the senior member of the staff and President of the Staff Association. He is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, and was its President from 1886 to 1888; is a member of the
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Providence Medical Association and served as its President in 1876-7 ; also member of the Ameri- can Medical Association, fellow of the American Academy of Medicine, member of the American Ophthalmological Society, Vice-President of the American Otological Society and the New England Ophthalmological Society, of which last-named he was for two years President. Dr. Miller was mar- ried, July 14, 1871, to Miss Helen, daughter of the late John Woods of Boston.
MONROE, WILLIAM C., M. D., Woonsocket, was born in Woonsocket, February 21, 1850, son of Abel Collins and Rebecca (Coe) Monroe, the former of Plainfield, Conn., and the latter of Smith-
WM. C. MONROE.
field, R. I. His ancestry on the maternal side is traceable directly back to John and Priscilla Alden of the Mayflower. His early education was acquired in the public schools of his native place, and at the Friends' School in Providence, where he fitted for teaching. He taught as Gram- mar Master for the next five years, during which period he carried on preparations for the study of medicine. He then entered Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York city, graduated Feb- ruary 21, 1876, and entered upon the practice of his profession in Woonsocket, where he has since
remained. Dr. Monroe is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, and has served on the staff of the Woonsocket Hospital since its establishment in 1888. He was for eight years Coroner of Woon- socket. He has also served a number of years on the School Board of that city, and as a member of the Board of Management of the Friends' School in Providence. In politics he is a Republican, and in religion a member of the Society of Friends. He was married, June 8, 1876, to Miss Carrie M., daughter of William W. Remington, of Phenix, R. I. ; they have no children living.
OLNEY, FRANK FULLER, Mayor of Providence two years, 1894-6, was born in Jersey City, N. J., March 12, 1851, son of Elam W. and Helen (Fuller) Olney. He is descended from Thomas Olney, one of the associates of Roger Williams in the settle- ment of Providence in 1636. The Olney family has always held a prominent place in the commercial and social life of Providence, and from it is derived the name of Olney street and of Olneyville, the
FRANK F. OLNEY.
principal manufacturing suburb of the city. The subject of this sketch acquired his early education in the public schools and the University Grammar School of Providence, to which city he removed at the age of nine years. At seventeen he entered
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mercantile life as clerk in the office of a woolen manufacturer, but after a short time abandoned this occupation to engage in the study of law, in the office of W. W. & S. T. Douglas, with the purpose of adopting that profession. But the continually increasing demands of private business interests have claimed so large a share of his time and atten- tion that he has never engaged in professional practice. Mr. Olney has always held an active interest in military affairs, and served for three years as Commander of the First Light Infantry Veteran Association. He is also a member of the National Lancers and the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, the Continental. Guards of New Orleans, and a Captain in the Boston Light Infantry Corps. In politics he is a Republican, and has long been prominent in the public life of the city. He was a member of the City Council in 1889-90-91 and 1893, and for a number of years served as Chairman of the Repub- lican City Committee. In 1894 he was elected Mayor of Providence, and administered the affairs of the executive office with honor to himself and credit to the city for two terms, being re-elected in 1895. Mayor Olney is a member of the Hope, Squantum, Pomham and West Side clubs of Providence, and of the Providence Athletic Association.
PEASE, LEROV BIDWELL, of Woonsocket, editor and proprietor of the Woonsocket Patriot and Woon- socket Evening Reporter, was born in Enfield, Conn., February 2, 1842, son of Walter Raleigh and Sophia (Bidwell) Pease. His paternal homestead has re- mained in the possession of the family since the settle- ment of the town, having been occupied by them for seven generations, and his father still resides on the land purchased by his ancestor from the Indians in 1680. On the maternal side also he is of Puritan ancestry, the Bidwells having been among the first settlers of Hartford, Conn. When he was but four years old his parents removed to Manchester, Conn., where his father, who was a contractor and builder, was engaged in the erection of buildings for the Cheney Silk Works, now of world-wide fame. Leroy attended the public schools of Manchester, and finished his educational period by a course at Pro- fessor. J. C. Howard's private academy for boys at East Hartford. He then entered a drug store in Hartford, and began reading medicine, but after two years, experiencing a desire to learn the news- paper business, he entered the office of the Tolland
County Gazette in Rockville, where he remained until the fall of 1859. Returning to Hartford he worked as a journeyman printer until the war times of 1861, when he enlisted as a private in the First Connecticut Light Battery and served until mustered out in the fall of 1862. He again returned to Hartford, and filled various positions on the newspapers of that city, New Haven and New York until November 1863, when he re-enlisted, in Company A, First Connecticut Heavy Artillery, and served until mustered out in September 1865, several months after the close of the war. During a portion of his army term he was engaged in
L. B. PEASE.
special service for the government. After the war Mr. Pease resumed newspaper work in New York and Hartford, and in the summer of 1870 went to Providence. After filling short engagements on the Journal and Herald of that city, he came to Woon- socket and entered the employ of Samuel S. Foss, publisher of the Patriot, with whom he remained until the fall of 1873, when he started the Evening Reporter, the first daily issued in Woonsocket. Since then he has devoted himself to the publica- tion of that paper and the advancement of his general newspaper business, having in the meantime purchased the Patriot and other competing journals. Politically Mr. Pease is a Republican, but has never
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held public office. He has devoted much time to temperance and philanthropic work, and is in- terested in all matters relating to the public welfare and the promotion of the best interests of his adopted city. He was married, in 1874, to Miss Helen A., youngest daughter of Samuel S. Mosely of Hampton, Conn .; they have three children : Arthur S., Albert L. and Helen L. Pease.
PECK, GEORGE BACHELER, M. D., Providence, was born in Providence, August 12, 1843, son of George Bacheler and Ann Power (Smith) Peck. He is descended in the eighth generation from Joseph
GEO, B. PECK.
Peck, who came in 1638 from Hingham, Norfolk county, England, and settled at New Hingham, Norfolk county, New England, with three sons, a daughter, two men-servants and three maid-servants ; the descent is. through Joseph's eldest son, Joseph, Jr. His paternal grandmother was a daughter of Reverend William Batcheler of Sutton, Massachu- setts, fourth in descent from Joseph Batcheler, the original immigrant and founder of that family in this country. Through his mother he is connected with the Wilbur and the Sayles families. He acquired his early education in the public schools of Providence, entered Brown University and grad- uated in 1864 with the degree of A. B., receiving
an additional diploma for a course in civil engineer- ing extra to the regular college course. In 1867 he also received from the university the degree of A. M. Soon after leaving college he was mustered in, conditionally upon raising a company, as Second Lieutenant of Company G, Second Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers, December 13, 1864. He was on recruiting service and waiting orders until some time in January, and then on duty at the United States draft rendezvous, popularly known as the Conscript Camp, at Grapevine Point, Fairhaven (now part of New Haven), Conn., until March 13, when he sailed with his company to City Point, Va. He participated in the siege of Petersburg and the pursuit of Lee, and having at the battle of Sailor's Creek received a bullet through his left side, he resigned and was honorably discharged July 5, 1865. After his return from the war he filled a position as bookkeeper in Peck & Salsbury's coal and wood office four years, but finding business distasteful, he took a summer and winter course in the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1869-70, followed by a winter and summer course in the Medical Department of Yale University in 1870-I, receiving a diploma from President Woolsey in June of the latter year. He then took a one-year post-graduate course in the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, devoting attention to practical chemistry, determinative mineralogy, as- saying, stockbreeding, and military and physical geography. He was Assistant Chemist at the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport in 1872 4, was tem- porarily in charge of the Chemical Department of the University of Vermont in the fall of the latter year, and in June 1875 he commenced the practice of medicine in Providence, which he has prose- cuted unremittingly ever since. For upwards of fifteen years his office was in the house where his mother was born, and on the exact spot where his grandfather, John Knowles Smith, kept an old- fashioned grocery and gunsmithery during his entire life; but his increasing and overwhelming cares necessitated the removal of his office to his home, where he and his father were both born, the house being built by his grandfather, Benjamin Peck, in 1803. Dr. Peck has been Admitting Physician to the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Hospital since the opening of that institution in 1886, declining a regular staff appointment, and has served as a Trustee ever since that date. He was admitted to member- ship in the Rhode Island Homeopathic Society in April 1875 ; was Secretary from August 1875 to Janu-
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ary 1883, Vice-President 1883-4, President 1885-6, Censor 1887-8-9 and Treasurer 1890-1-2, his period of official service covering seventeen and a half years. He became a member of the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1879, was Acting Chairman of the Section in Obstetrics in 1880, Chairman in 1881, 1886, 1888 and 1892, Secretary in 1887, 1889 and 1890, and in 1895 was elected Censor for a term of five years and appointed Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Correspondence, to which latter position he was reappointed in 1896. He was Vice-President of the Western Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society in 1886-7, and is an honorary member of the Homoeopathic Med- ical Society of the State of New York and of the Missouri Institute of Homœopathy. He is one of the thirteen founders of Prescott Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he was Surgeon in 1881-3 and 1890-6, was Medical Director of the Department of Rhode Island G. A. R. in 1894-5-6, is a Companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, was President of the Rhode Island Soldiers' and Sailors' Historical Society 1892-6, and was Vice-President for three years at an earlier period, and has been Adjutant and ex-officio necrologist of the Marine Artillery Veteran Associ- ation since 1875. After service as a private for brief periods in the First Ward Light Guard and the University Cadets, volunteer wartime organiza- tions, he was enrolled in the Providence Marine Corps of Artillery in March 1863, and during the eight subsequent years he held nearly every official position, having a Major's commission the last two years. He was also Surgeon of the Battalion of Light Artillery Division, Rhode Island Militia, from 1876 until its disbandment in 1879. Dr. Peck has also held civil office, having served on the School Committee of Providence from April 1881 to December 1895. He is a member of What Cheer Masonic Lodge of Providence, Washington Com- mandery Knights Templar of Newport, and Rhode Island Sovereign Consistory, Thirty-second Degree, Scottish Rite. He is a member of the First Baptist Church of Newport, member of the Board of Managers of the Rhode Island Baptist State Con- vention since 1876, Treasurer of the Narragansett Baptist Association since 1877 and Clerk from 1877 to 1886 and since 1892, and in 1889 was Moderator of that association, composed of twenty-seven regular or associate Baptist churches in the south part of the state, being the only layman that has
ever held such a position in the state. He is also a member of the Rhode Island Baptist Social Union. Dr. Peck has a ready pen, and has con- tributed to the publications of the Rhode Island Soldiers' and Sailors' Historical Society some inter- esting sketches under the titles of " A Recruit before Petersburg," and "Camp and Hospital." He is also the author of a " Historical Sketch of the Narragansett Baptist Association," " Pabula Neona- torum," annual reports of original investigation to the American Institute of Homoeopathy, and other professional articles contributed more particularly to the Hahnemannian Monthly, the Southern Jour- nal of Homeopathy and the American Homœo- pathist, besides a series of "Pencil Jottings " furnished the Providence Daily Journal between 1868 and 1872, with other articles and reports at divers times, also a few papers to the Christian Secretary, of Hartford, Conn. Dr. Peck claims to have never had any politics, in the general meaning of the term; but he has been an unswerving Republican in principle since the days of " Fremont and Jessie," and is a Monometallist and a Protec- tionist. He is unmarried.
PECKHAM, CHARLES HENRY, Secretary of the State Board of Charities and Corrections, was born in North Scituate, May 11, 1833, son of Abner W. and Patia F. (Harris) Peckham. He is of old Colonial and early Rhode Island ancestry on both sides, and on the paternal side is a descendant of Stephen Hopkins, one of the founders of Rhode Island and a signer of the Declaration of Independ- ence. His early education was acquired in the public schools of his native town, and later he attended Fruit Hill Seminary in North Providence. At about the age of twenty he came to Providence, where he was clerk in a bank for two or three years and then entered into a business partnership under the firm name of Spicer & Peckham, stove manu- facturers. This relationship continued thirty-two years, and the firm was long known as one of the leading houses of its line in Providence. Mr. Peckham served three years in the Legislature, as a member of the House in 1885-6, and of the Senate in 1886-7-8. In the Senate he was chairman of the Committee on Corporations one year, and on the Finance Committee two years. He was for eleven years President of the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry, now the Rhode Island State Fair Association, and under
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his executive management the finances of the society were increased from an annual loss of about eigh- teen hundred dollars to a profit of fifteen or sixteen thousand dollars a year. Mr. Peckham was also largely instrumental in founding the State Agricul-
CHAS. H. PECKHAM.
tural College ; while in the Legislature he introduced a resolution making inquiry as to the Hatch fund, providing government aid for such institutions, was appointed chairman of the committee of inquiry and afterwards was made chairman of the com- mittee on locating the school. In 1888 he was appointed a member of the Board of State Charities and Corrections, and in 1893 was made Secretary and Purchasing Agent, which position he now holds. In politics he is a Democrat. Mr. Peckham resides in Providence winters, but his summer home is in North Scituate, the place of his birth. He was married, February 27, 1862, to Miss Celia S., daughter of George T. Spicer of Providence ; they have no children living.
PERRY, JOHN EDWARD, M. D., was born in Wakefield, South Kingstown, R. I., May 28, 1847, son of John G. and Harriet T. (Hazard) Perry, and continues to make his home there. His father has twice been General Treasurer of the State of Rhode Island, and thirty years Town Clerk of South
Kingstown. Both parents are living. Dr. Perry claims close relationship to Commodore O. H. Perry, the hero of Lake Erie, and to Commodore Matthew C. Perry, famed for the treaty that he negotiated with Japan, by which the ports of that country were opened to the world, being cousin to them, as is shown by the Perry genealogy as follows : Edward Perry, who came from England, had two sons, Samuel and Benjamin. From Samuel was descended his son James ; his son John ; his son John R .; his son John G .; and his son John E., the subject of this sketch. From Benjamin came his son Freeman, and his son Raymond, the father of the Commodores. Dr. Perry's early education was obtained in the public schools, and later in the Connecticut Literary Institute at Suffield, where he bore the honor of the Presidency of the Calliope Ovat, the oldest society of the Institute. Deter- mining to enter the professional ranks, young Perry attended the Yale Medical College, and later the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, a department of Columbia College, from which he graduated February 27, 1873. He commenced
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JOHN E. PERRY.
practice immediately in Wakefield, where he has since resided. His specialty is obstetrics, in which he has been eminently successful. A similar success, however, has attended his efforts in other depart- ments of medicine, and has won for him a substantial
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practice and the character of an able, painstaking physician. A course of popular health lectures having been projected in South Kingstown in 1886, Dr. Perry delivered a lecture on hygiene and ac- companied it with illustrations on the blackboard. Among other contributions to medical literature, Dr. Perry is the author of an article on " Pediculo- phobia," which he read before the Rhode Island Medical Society, and also an essay on " La Grippe," published in the Narragansett Times in 1890, in which he called attention to the disease that pre- vailed in 1842, and which was called " Tyler's Grip," after the then President of the United States. He also showed that it was closely related to the Southern "dengue " or break-bone fever, in which opinion he was sustained by Louise Fiske Bryson, M. D., of New York, and by the French Academy. Dr. Perry was elected a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society in 1874, and of the Provi- dence Franklin Society (scientific) in 1875. He has been twice elected Master of Hope Lodge, A. F. & A. M., No. 25, is a member of the Grand Lodge, and of Franklin Chapter No. 7, A. F. & A. M. In June 1891 he was appointed by the Grand Master to represent Hope Lodge at the Centennial of the Grand Lodge held in Provi- dence. Among the civil offices he has held is that of Deputy Town Clerk in 1869, Town Phy- sician, and in 1891 the Governor appointed him Medical Examiner for the Second District of Washington county, for the term of six years. Dr. Perry was married, May 1, 1878, to Miss Elnora E. Crawford; they have one daughter : Harriet E. Perry.
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