USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. IV > Part 9
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Although his agricultural interests have absorbed most of Mr. Madison's attention he has also been active in other spheres. For a number of years he was a member of the School Board of the town of Warwick, and after his removal to North Kings- town, he served four years as a member of the Rhode Island State Senate from North Kings- town. He has always been willing to give his time and efforts to the promotion of the public interest, supporting all worthy movements for progress. Mr. Madison is a Republican in politics, and as the standard bearer of this party was elected to public office. He is affiliated frater- nally with King Solomon Lodge, No. 15, Free and Accepted Masons, and in this great order is a member also of Narragansett Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Providence Council, Royal and Select Masters; St. John's Commandery, No. I, Knights Templar; and all bodies of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite including Rhode Island Consistory. He is also a member of Palestine Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Madison is a member of the board of managers of East Greenwich Branch, Union Trust Company.
In 1875, George Warren Madison married Fannie L. Spink, who was born at Fall River, Massachu- setts. They became the parents of several children : I. Warren Brown, deceased. 2. Harold L., who was curator for many years of Roger Williams Park, and is now acting director of the Museum of Natural History at Cleveland, Ohio. 3. Ralph, deceased. 4. Louise. 5. Francis S. 6. G. Manton, who served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during the World War as a member of the United States Army Field Artil- ley Corps. Mr. and Mrs. Madison attend the Baptist Church.
ROBERT F. BURNETT -- As a mining engi- neer and a utilities executive a high place is held by Robert F. Burnett, of Westerly, since 1929 the manager and a director in the service of the South
County Public Service Company and the Mystic Power Company. Mr. Burnett came well prepared for the duties he has performed since joining the organizations noted, having had not only an ex- tended course of theoretical training but a wide practical experience in other localities. His work here has been valuable to the continuing develop- ment of the services he is looked upon to render the public, as it was in other positions he held.
He was born in Maplewood, Massachusetts, October I, 1888, a son of Robert Eugene Burnett, a native of Boston, and engaged in investment business, and Laura O. (Field) Burnett, deceased, of Everett, Massachusetts. His education was be- gun in the schools of Chelsea, after completing which he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majored in mining and metallurgy and was graduated with the degree of Master of Science in 1910. He then became associated with the United States Steel Corporation and was sent by that organization to Chisholm, Minnesota, where he assisted in the development of the iron mines and remained three years. He then took a student training course in public utilities in the plants of Charles H. Tenney and Company, remained there for three years and was then summoned to accept the position of superintendent of the Peoples Gas and Electric Company, of Oswego, New York. In 1915 he was promoted to manager and then to general manager and director, continuing in these positions until 1929, when he was induced to come to Westerly and accept the position already noted. He is a Democrat in his political affiliations and attends the Congregational Church. He be- longs to the Theta Chi college fraternity and to the Westerly Yacht Club, National Electric Light Association, American Gas Association, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Club of Rhode Island. His favorite sport is yachting.
Robert F. Burnett married, in 1912, Agnes Marian Jones, of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and they are the parents of five children : Robert Ellis, Jane, Richard William, Marian Weston, and Mil- dred Harriet, the last two being twins.
BENJAMIN F. SOLOMON-Successfully engaged in the men's furnishings business in East Greenwich for more than a quarter of a century, Mr. Solomon is the sole owner of what is gen- erally regarded the leading store in this line in East Greenwich. Its success is largely the result of Mr. Solomon's business ability and untiring in-
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dustry and energy. He enjoys a very high reputa- . was president of the Rhode Island Anti-Saloon tion for fair dealing and is a popular member of the community in which he has been a resident for so many years.
Benjamin F. Solomon was born in Providence, April 15, 1888, a son of the late Isaac and Rose (Belinsky) Solomon. His father, now deceased, was born in Germany, but spent the greater part of his life in this country. He established the men's furnishings business, now owned by his son, many years ago in East Greenwich and continued active in its management until his death, placing it on a sound foundation and establishing for himself a very high reputation as a reliable and able busi- ness man. Mr. Solomon received his early educa- tion in the public schools of East Greenwich and then attended the East Greenwich Academy. Hav- ing completed his education, he became associated with his father in the men's furnishings business in East Greenwich. This association continued until 1906, when Mr. Solomon, together with his brother, John A. Solomon, purchased the busi- ness from his father. At that time the firm name was changed to Isaac Solomon & Sons. The part- nership between the two brothers continued until 1914, when Mr. Benjamin F. Solomon purchased the interest of his brother. Since then he has continued the business alone and under his own name and he is now is sole owner. It has enjoyed a steady growth and prosperity and is today the largest men's furnishings store in East Greenwich. Mr. Solomon is a member of the East Greenwich Chamber of Commerce and of its retail division, as well as of Harmony Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and of the Royal Arcanum. In politics he is a supporter of the Republican party. His religious affiliation is with the Sons of Zion Hebrew Temple. He is fond of outdoor life and sports and is interested in all forms of athletics.
Mr. Solomon married, in 1915, Dorothy Silver- man, a native of Troy, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Solomon have two children : Leonard and Shirley.
HON. NATHAN WHITMAN LITTLE- FIELD, M. A .- A distinguished member of the Rhode Island bar for more than half a century, the late Hon. Nathan Whitman Littlefield, probate judge of Pawtucket, had served also as Federal referee in bankruptcy and as a member of the State Senate, in which body he was the father of the first caucus act to be passed by either body of the Assembly. An outstanding Prohibitionist, he
League, and a vice-president of the national organ- iation. He was a "Mayflower" descendant and related to some of the most important families and personages in New England.
Edmund Littlefield, the first settler of that name in America, came from England in 1637-38, and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. He removed to Maine, where he built the first sawmill in that part of the country. He died in Wells, Maine, Decem- ber II, 1661. He married, in 1617, in England, Agnes Austin, and they became the parents of eight children. The line of descent is through their son, Anthony, and his wife, Mary Page; their son, Edmund (2), and his wife, Elizabeth Mott; their son, Edmund (3), and his wife, Bethia Waldo; their son Daniel, and his wife, Rebecca Williams; their son, Seth, and his wife, Kezia Ames; their son, Seth (2), and his wife, Sarah Crane; their son, Rufus Ames, of whom see fur- ther.
Rufus Ames Littlefield, third of the eight chil- dren of Seth (2) and Sarah (Crane) Littlefield, was born December 2, 1818. He was assistant principal of East Bridgewater Academy, Massa- chusetts. For several years he taught in Plymouth County of the Bay State, and was greatly loved by his pupils. He married, June 10, 1845, Abigail Russell Whitman, daughter of Deacon Nathan and Samantha (Keith) Whitman, of East Bridgewater.
Through her father, Mrs. Littefield's descent has been traced from John Alden, William and Alice Mullens, and Priscilla Mullens, Stephen, Eliz- abeth and Damaris Hopkins, James Chilton and his wife, and Mary (Chilton) Winslow, Francis Cooke, Miles Standish, and Francis Eaton, all "May- flower" passengers. She was also descended from several other Plymouth settlers who arrived after the Pilgrims, John Winslow, Giles Rickard, Moses Simmons, Robert Latham, Experience Mitchell, Elder Gain Robinson, Edward Holman, George Partridge, William Haskins, and others. Through the Keith line she was descended from Edward Quincy, of Braintree, Massachusetts, who came from England in 1633 with Rev. John Cotton, and was the founder of the Quincy family in Massa- chusetts; and from Joanna Hoar, sister of Rev. Leonard Hoar, president of Harvard University, and who became the wife of Edmund Quincy, son of Edmund and Judith Quincy; and also from Rev. Thomas Sheppard, a professor and bene- factor of Harvard University, of which he was one of the founders, whose daughter Ann married Daniel Quincy, son of Edmund Quincy, 2d, and
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had a daughter Ann, who married Colonel John Holman, father of Captain John Holman, and had a daughter Sarah, who married James Keith, great- grandfather of Abigail Russell (Whitman) Little- field. She was also a descendant of John Field, companion to Roger Williams. John Field was a lineal descendant of Sir Hubertus de la Field, who followed William the Conqueror to England in 1066, and after the battle of England received a grant of land in England.
The Whitman family, the first of which was John Whitman, of Weymouth and Bridgewater, Massachusetts, has given many eminent men to the professional, business and public life of Massa- chusetts and the United States. Among them were Ezekiel Whitman, member of Congress and for many years Chief Justice of the Superior Court and of the Supreme Court of the State of Maine; William E. Russell, twice Governor of Massachu- setts; Dr. Marcus Whitman, who saved the ter- ritory of Oregon for the United States; and Hon. Kilborn Whitman, of Abington, after whom the town of Whitman, Massachusetts, was named. There have been many men and women in the Whitman family of high scholastic attainments, as the records of Harvard and Brown universities show.
Mr. Littlefield was a devout member of the Union Congregational Church, of East and West Bridgewater, and superintendent of the Sunday school, where Mrs. Littlefield was teacher of a women's Bible class. He was a firm advocate of the temperance cause and assisted in the enforce- ment of the laws for the suppression of the illegal sale of intoxicants in East Bridgewater. His inter- est in religious education was shared by his wife. Children of Rufus Ames and Abigail Russell (Whitman) Littlefield: I. Nathan Whitman, of whom further. 2. George Henry. 3. Rufus Ames. 3. Daniel Eugene. 4. Frank Russell. 5. Abby Whitman. 6. Agnes Keith. 7. Baalis Sanford. 8. Charles Gilbert. 9. Abby Francis.
Nathan Whitman Littlefield, eldest child and son of Rufus Ames and Abigail Russell (Whitman) Littlefield, was born in East Bridgewater, Massa- chusetts, May 21, 1846. His early education was received in the private schools of his native town and under private tutorship. He then studied for a short time at Bridgewater Academy and com- pleted his preparatory training at Phillips Acad- emy, Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 1865. He then entered Dartmouth College, having passed an excellent entrance examination. During his col- lege career he made a conspicuous record both in
scholarship and athletics. In his freshman year he was chosen football captain, and held the posi- tion throughout his course of four years. For several years he was class president. In his junior and senior years he was assistant instructor of physical education and hygiene. As head of Pi Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, he had the pleas- ure of inducting General William Tecumseh Sher- man, who was a guest of Dartmouth at the cele- bration of the college's one hundredth anniversary, into honorary membership in that fraternity.
In spite of being thrown upon his own resources financially, and thus compelled to perform many tasks that were remunerative, he was a foremost student and won honors. At the junior exhibition of his class he delivered the Greek oration; this was ranked as the highest honor that could be conferred by the faculty on the basis of scholar- ship. At the senior exhibition of the two open literary societies of the college, the most impor- tant literary function of the college course, he was selected as the representative of his society in the debate which was considered the leading part of the exhibition.
Having graduated from Dartmouth in the class of 1869, Mr. Littlefield entered upon a careeer of educational work, to which he had become some- what accustomed while tutoring undergraduates in college. He was appointed submaster in the high school of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and for three years was principal of the high school at Newport, Rhode Island. In 1873 he accepted the principalship of the Westerly High School and the superintendentcy of schools of the village of West- erly. He was successful both as teacher and super- intendent. He refused special inducements from the School Board when he determined to take up the study of law in order to enter upon its prac- tice.
In October, 1874, he entered the law department of Boston University and was graduated in the class of 1876, having completed the three years' course in two years. In that year he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and almost immediately he came to Providence, studied Rhode Island statutes and court procedure for six months, and was admitted to the bar of this State in 1877. In due time he was admitted to practice before the United States courts, and he soon took a leading place among the lawyers of Rhode Island.
He always devoted himself to civil rather than criminal cases. He handled some of the largest and most important cases that ever came before the Rhode Island courts. He was counsel for owners
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of land sought by the city of Providence under right of eminent domain proceedings for the en- largement of Roger Williams Park in 1890. He carried a title fight, to the Supreme Court and won for his clients a case in which a quarter of a mil- lion dollars was involved.
In 1907, upon the reorganization of the Union Trust Company of Providence, he was secretary and counsel of the depositors' committee. He formulated the plan of reorganization which was declared to be a most remarkable piece of work. In 1908 he was appointed the first referee in bank- ruptcy for Rhode Island under the United States Bankruptcy Act of 1898, and had much to do with the interpretation of the law in its earliest stages. He was repeatedly reappointed until 1918, when he declined further appointment. He was the senior partner, in the law firm of Littlefield & Barrows, from 1899 until Mr. Barrows was elected a jus- tice of the Superior Court in 1913. One of his earlier law partners was the late Colonel Walter R. Stiness, who became a Representative in Con- gress.
In politics he was a member of the progressive wing of the Democratic party, having joined the party during the administration of President Grover Cleveland. In 1900 he was a candidate for Gover- nor on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated. Twice afterward he declined the Democratic nomi- nation for that office. He represented the city of Pawtucket in the Rhode Island Senate in 1897- 1898, and while a member drafted the first caucus act to be passed by either house of the Assembly. From 1897 to 1901 he was a member of the Paw- tucket School Committee, having been elected by the Democratic party, and in 1905 he was elected to the committee on a nonpartisan ticket. From 1898 to 1901 he was chairman of the board.
In 1926, he was elected judge of the Probate Court by the Pawtucket City Council, and there- after until his death gave himself unremittingly and with marked faithfulness to the discharge of the duties of that office.
Judge Littlefield, as a vice-president of the Na- tional Anti-Saloon League and president of the league in Rhode Island, was a prominent figure in the crusade against the liquor traffic. Himself a "Mayflower" descendant and a keen student of history, he gained attention through the Eastern section of the United States, in 1923, when he derided assertions made by historians that the Mas- sachusetts Puritans were largely given to the use of intoxicants. He was always an ardent Pro- hibitionist, and gave addresses on the cause of
temperance in general before conventions and church congregations.
Judge Littlefield was a devout churchman, hav- ing fellowship with the Pawtucket Congregational Church, of whose Sunday school he was super- intendent for years. He was a life-member of the Congregational Sunday School Society, president of the Rhode Island Home Missionary Society ; vice-president of the Rhode Island Congregational Conference; chairman of the committee on auxil- iary cities, and chairman of the whole commit- tee which carried on the work in Pawtucket and Central Falls, in the Men and Religion Forward Movement of 1911-12.
He was a member of the National Municipal League; a member and officer of the American Bar Association, a member and president of the Society of the Founders of Providence; a mem- ber and vice-president of the Rhode Island Bar Association, the American Society for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, the National Security League, the Rhode Island Historical So- ciety, the Old Colony Historical Society ; honorary member and trustee of the Old Bridgewater His- torical Society ; a member and former Governor of the Rhode Island Chapter of Mayflower Descend- ants; and assistant general of the National So- ciety of Mayflower Descendants. He was affiliated also with the Free and Accepted Masons, the Pawtucket Golf Club, and the Bristol Yacht Club. As a lecturer and orator on historical, political, and patriotic subjects, his services were in demand for numerous and important occasions.
In 1909, Dartmouth College, his alma mater, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts, as "one who has carried the high ideal of his college life into his labor career."
Judge Littlefield married (first), August 13, 1873, Arletta V. Redman, daughter of Hon. Eras- tus Redman, of Ellsworth, Maine, who was post- master of that city and collector of the port for many years. She died in Providence, October 18, 1878. He married (second), December 1, 1886, Mary Wheaton Ellis, daughter of Asher Ellis, of Pawtucket. There are two sons: I. Nathan Whit- man, Jr., born April 20, 1877, graduated from Brown University, 1899; now a resident of Sharon, Massachusetts. 2. Alden Llewellyn, born December 19, 1889; graduated from Dartmouth College, 1914; now a resident of Pawtucket. Mrs. Littlefield is a lineal descendant of Rev. John Ellis, one of the early pastors of the old Newman Congregational Church of East Providence, Rhode Island, for- merly Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Another of her
Rer John J. Sullivan
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ancestors was Deacon Asa Ware, of Dedham, Massachusetts. She is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and from 1918 to 192I was regent of the Flintlock and Powderhorn Chapter of Pawtucket. For many years she has been a member and active worker in the Paw- tucket Congregational Church.
The death of Judge Littlefield, which occurred on December 5, 1929, removed one of the out- standing citizens and representatives of official life in this State. He was the soul of honor in public and private activities, and with great fidelity to truth and right as he saw it, pursued his course to the end. For justice, peace and righteousness, he ever labored in all his undertakings. His rec- ord as an eminent judge and member of the bar was given further emphasis by his love for his fellowman, in his whole-souled and whole-hearted manner in all that he did and in contacts with his colleagues and associates.
REV. JOHN FRANCIS SULLIVAN -- Since April, 1909, Rev. John Francis Sullivan has been the faithful pastor of St. Matthew's Church of Auburn, Rhode Island.
St. Matthew's Church had its beginning as a mission chapel of St. Ann's Church of Cranston. Back in 1858, when the mother church, St. Ann's, was dedicated, Sprague's Print Works was the center which attracted to Cranston the Irish immi- grants who made up the congregation of five hun- dred souls attending the new St. Ann's. Between 1871 and 1885, however, the Spragues failed and Cranston "went down." Many of the old Cath- olic families moved away and the membership of St. Ann's dwindled. In later years prosperity in moderate measure returned to Cranston as an at- tractive suburb of Providence and a number of French-Canadian families and some hundreds of Italians became members of St. Ann's congrega- tion. In April, 1902, a mission chapel was erected in Auburn and placed under the patronage of St. Matthew. About three and a half years later St. Matthew's was made a separate parish and placed in charge of Rev. Joseph Scheuren, as administra- tor. Father Scheuren served ably and faithfully until April, 1909, when the present pastor, Rev. John Francis Sullivan was appointed first pastor of St. Matthew's parish.
Rev. John Francis Sullivan was born in the village of Upper Dreen, in the parish of South Kilcaskan (better known as "Clan Lawrence
parish"), Berchaven, County Cork, Ireland, Satur- day, September 28, 1867, fifth of the seven children of John Dennis, who died August II, 1911, in his seventy-ninth year, and of Nora (Sullivan) Sul- livan, who died suddenly October 7, 1888, at the early age of forty-eight years. Two of the seven children of John Dennis and Nora Sullivan were boys, the first-born, Michael, who died in infancy, and John Francis. The latter was baptized by the late Father John O'Reilly, October 16, 1867, and was confirmed by the late David Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, July 17, 1877. From 1874 until June, 1881, he was a pupil of the late Matthew Crowley in the National School at Adrigole. A month be- fore the completion of his grammar course in that school, however, the Sullivan family sailed for America, arriving in Newport, Rhode Island, June 21, 1881. From that time until the end of January, 1886, the boy attended St. Mary's parochial school in Newport, spending the greater part of his time in private study of Latin, Greek, French, and higher mathematics, under the direction of the late Bishop Doran and Rev. Thomas P. Grace, then assistants at Newport. In February, 1886, he en- tered Mt. St. Mary's College, at Emmitsburg, Maryland, from which he was graduated with a class of twelve, June 26, 1889. On September 17, 1889, he began his theological course in St. John's Seminary at Brighton, Massachusetts, where he continued his studies until June, 1892. The fol- lowing fall, September 12, 1892, he was trans- ferred from Brighton to St. Mary's Seminary at Baltimore, Maryland, where he added three years of study of philosophy and four years of theology to his equipment for his life work. He was or- dained a priest, with a class of twelve, by the late Cardinal Gibbons, at the Baltimore Cathedral, Thursday, June 21, 1894. The next morning, Fri- day, June 22, 1894, he said his first Mass at St. Edward's Church, Branch Avenue, Providence, of which his friend, Bishop Doran, was then pastor. His first appointment was as assistant at St. Joseph's Church at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where he served from Saturday, July 7, 1894, until Satur- day, September 3, 1898. He was then transferred to St. Lawrence's parish, New Bedford, Massa- chusetts, then a part of Providence Diocese, and there he served ably until Saturday, January II, 1903. After the affliction which befell the late Father Thomas L. Kelly, pastor of the Assump- tion parish, Potter Avenue, Providence, Father Sullivan was recalled from New Bedford and as- signed to the Potter Avenue Church, where he remained until May 14, 1904. On that date he
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replaced the late Father John E. Brady as assistant at St. Teresa's Parish, Providence, serving under the pastorship of Rev. Owen F. Clarke. When Father Clarke was promoted to the pastorship of Holy Name Church in Providence, Father Sul- livan was transferred with him, March 30, 1906. There he labored most efficiently until Friday, April 16, 1909, when he was appointed pastor of St. Matthew's Church at Auburn, succeeding Father Scheuren who had served as administrator there. Since that time, a period of twenty-one years, Father Sullivan has faithfully devoted him- self to the advancement of the interests of his parish, which, in addition to Auburn includes parts of Cranston, all of the town of Warwick, and parts of the city of Providence. From a small mission the parish has grown, under the able leadership of Father Sullivan, to a parish num- bering five hundred souls. The large membership and the many activities of the parish make neces- sary the services of two assistants, who aid Father Sullivan in the splendid work which he is achiev- ing at St. Matthew's. For twenty-one years Father Sullivan has kept constantly at his loved work, only twice leaving for change and rest, once to visit his native land, Ireland, from May II to June 15, 1901, only a little more than a month, and again for a thirteen-day trip to the West Indies.
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