The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 119

Author: National biographical publishing co., pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Providence, National biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 868

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EANE, EBEN J., merchant, was born in Sullivan, Hancock County, Maine, September 1, 1831, and is the son of Theodore and Cynthia Cook (Brown) Beane. His father, who died January 19, 1881, at the advanced age of eighty-seven, was appointed by President Jackson Deputy Collector of the Port of French- man's Bay, Eastern District of Maine, in 1836, which po- sition he held for nearly nine years, being reappointed by President Van Buren, and also served as County Commis- sioner of Hancock County. He was for many years a

prominent member of the Masonic fraternity. His ances- tors were of French origin, and the name of Simpson among them can be traced through several generations to Governor Sullivan of Massachusetts. Mr. Beane's mother, who died July 6, 1847, was a woman of uncommon worth, and highly esteemed by all who knew her. Her father was killed while fighting under Commodore Perry on Lake Erie. Mr. Beane was educated in the district school of his native town. Soon after his mother's death he was employed for one year in a country store, and then returned to the old homestead, which he fitted up as a hotel, and together with his sister, Harriet H. Beane, conducted suc- cessfully for four years, at the end of which time their prop- erty was destroyed by fire, and having no insurance, they were unable to resume business. In September, 1856, Mr. Beane removed to Providence, where he obtained employ- ment, and immediately paid his debts occasioned by the fire. Some time afterwards he received an appointment as an officer in the shoe department of the Rhode Island State Prison. After one year's service in this capacity, he ac- cepted a similar position in the Rhode Island Reform School, where he remained for two years, and was then chosen by the East New York Boot and Shoe Manufactur- ing Company as their foreman, which place he held for five years. On retiring from that position he opened a boot and shoe store on High Street, Providence, where he continued in business for thirteen years, and then removed to the elegant store at the corner of Westminster and Union streets, where he is at present located. He is one of the most successful merchants in Providence. He has a fine residence on Butler Avenue, where he resides with his sister.

HURSTON, ALFRED HENRY, surgeon, the young- est child of Charles M. and Rachel H. Thurston, was born in Newport, October 2, 1832, and gradu- ated from Columbia College, in the city of New York, in the class of 1851. He received his medical degree from the University of New York. For some time he held an important position in the New York City Hospital. He received an appointment as Surgeon of the Twelfth Regi- ment of New York State Militia, and for three months in 1861 was with this regiment in the defence of Washing- ton. October 5, 1861, he was appointed Brigade Surgeon of Volunteers, with the rank of Major, and ordered to the army of the Cumberland, where he was called to fill most important and responsible positions. He had the charge of the University Hospital, at Nashville, Tennessee, for some time. On the 30th of October, 1862, he was appointed Medical Inspector on Major-General Rosecrans' staff, and in 1863, Assistant Medical Director of the Department of the Cumberland. He was Medical Director of the Twelfth Army Corps, under Major-General Slocum, receiving his appointment January 7, 1864. In May of the same year

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he was stationed at Belle Plain, where he remained until he was transferred to Washington, where, for a short time, he was Medical Inspector, and finally was placed in charge of Grant Ilospital, Willett's Point, New York harbor, where he remained until the hospital was closed, in June, 1865. " For faithful and meritorious services during the war " he was appointed a Lieutenant-Colonel of Volunteers, by brevet, to rank as such from March 13, 1865. He did not long enjoy his honors. A disease contracted while he was in service prostrated him, and he died in New York, August 2, 1865. Dr. Thurston was twice married; the first time, April 10, 1856, to Eliza S., daughter of N. B. Blunt, Esq., of New York ; and the second time, April 25, 1864, to Mary S., daughter of James Bankhead, Esq., of Nashville. He was a direct descendant, in the fifth gene- ration, of Edward Thurston and Elizabeth Mott, who were among the earliest settlers of Newport.

UMPHREYS, LEWIS HOWARD, son of Thomas G. and Abby (Eddy) Humphreys, was born in Prov- idence, October 29, 1833. His father was a noted caterer, and is said to have been the first person to engage in the manufacture and sale of ice-cream in Providenee. Lewis H. was the fifth of a family of nine children, four sons and five daughters. He attended the common and high schools in Providence, then assisted his father for a short time, and was afterward employed in mercantile pursuits, until 1850, when he went to New York to learn the business of caterer and confectioner with Thompson & Son, with whom he remained until the death of his father, in February, 1852, when he returned to Providence to take charge of the business established by his father. In 1854 he and H. C. Burgess formed a part- nership, under the firm-name of L. H. Humphreys & Co., and carried on business as caterers until 1862, at the eorner now occupied by the Dorrance Hotel, keeping, also, a restaurant and ice-cream saloon for ladies. During this partnership Mr. Humphreys spent four months, in 1861, in Washington, D. C., as a partner with William S. Hayward in the Rhode Island Bakery, where they were extensively engaged in supplying sutlers for the army. After the ter- mination of the partnership relations between him and Mr. Burgess, during which the firm prospered and became well known throughout the State, Mr. Humphreys opened an elegant restaurant and saloon for ladies on Westminster Street, corner of Clemence, where he remained two years, and then sold out to Paul B. Wright, but continued in the same business elsewhere until 1877. During the war of the Rebellion he furnished rations for all the Rhode Island troops in the National and State service while they were in the State. He was the proprietor of Rocky Point during the seasons of 1865-66 and 1867, and from 1870 to 1877, inclusive, that place being first under the ownership of

Byron Sprague, and afterward under that of the American Steamboat Company. Under his management an elegant and commodious hotel was ereeted, the famous Rhode Island elam-bakes were served daily, and that place be- came one of the most popular summer resorts in the coun- try, being visited by excursion parties from all parts of New England, some of which numbered over twenty thousand. In addition to his management of Rocky Point, Mr. Humphreys became proprietor of the City Hotel, in Providence, September 1, 1869, which he conducted until September 1, 1877, and on the 15th of April, 1878, became the proprietor of the Narragansett Hotel. Under his man- agement the former house was widely known, and regarded as the best hotel in Providence. He continued as proprietor of the Narragansett Hotel until March 1, 1881. He was a member of the building committee, and it was largely through his personal efforts that the Narragansett was built. It is one of the largest and most magnificent hotels in the United States, having been erected at a cost of one million dollars, and under Mr. Humphreys' management it became one of the most popular. On the Ist of May, 1881, he leased the Hotel Dorrance, in Providence, of which he now is proprietor. Mr. Humphreys is a member of the Veteran Association of the First Light Infantry Regiment, of Providence. He married, January 11, 1855, Harriet Elizabeth Davis, daughter of Henry D. and Harriet T. (Booth) Davis, of Providence. They have one child, Fe- lieie Eddy Humphreys. Mr. Humphreys' superior busi- ness qualifications and social disposition have secured him a large measure of success and popularity in the calling to which his life has been devoted.

YLSWORTH, HIRAM BENNETT, merchant, son of Judge Eli and Martha ( Bennett) Aylsworth, was born at Foster, Rhode Island, February 19, 1831. In 1841 his parents removed to Killingly, and one year thereafter to Brooklyn, Connecticut. Mr. Aylsworth was educated in the common schools of his native town and Killingly, at Smithville Seminary, now Lapham Institute, and East Greenwich Academy, in Rhode Island. At the age of seventeen he was employed as clerk by Preston Bennett, agent of the Richmond Manufactur-' ing Company, in Providence, with whom he remained un- til May 20, 1850, when he became bookkeeper for Rice & Congdon, wholesale boot and shoe dealers, in Providence. This firm succeeded to the business originally established, in 1815, by Charles Cobb, a member of the Society of Friends. Mr. Aylsworth was admitted as a partner, Feb- ruary 8, 1857, and the firm-name was then changed to Rice, Congdon & Co., the other partners being George F. Rice and Henry R. Congdon. On the 8th of February, 1860, James Rothwell bought Mr. Rice's interest in the business, and the firm-name became Congdon, Aylsworth

L.S. HO umphreys

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& Co., and so continued until February 8, 1862, when Mr. Rothwell sold his interest to the other members of the firm, and the business has since been carried on under the name of Congdon & Aylsworth. Frank H. Congdon, son of Henry R. Congdon, has been a partner since 1876. Pre- vious to May 20, 1870, their place of business was on North Main Street, but since that time they have occupied the brick building owned by Alexander Duncan, corner of Pine and Hay streets, to which, to the surprise of their friends, their entire stock was removed during a single night. Their sales have steadily increased from year to year, and their trade now extends over a wide range of territory. In 1852 Mr. Aylsworth commenced selling goods by sample, and for twenty-one years spent much of his time travelling throughout the Eastern States in the interest of his house, during which time he visited his cus- tomers at regular periods, and for thirteen years he never lost a single bill, though his sales were very large. On the breaking out of the Rebellion, in 1861, he had charge of the management of the extensive business of the firm, and finding that it was his duty to remain at home, his patriotic spirit prompted him to send, voluntarily, a substitute, whom he liberally compensated for his services. He was first represented in the service by one of his clerks, to whom he gave a complete outfit, and continued his salary. This gentleman being wounded at the first battle of Bull Run, Mr. Aylsworth took him to his own home and cared for him until his recovery, when he reinstated him in his cleri- cal capacity, and engaged another substitute, at a liberal compensation, who continued in the service until the close of the war. In 1873 Mr. Aylsworth was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the Rhode Island Gene- ral Assembly, but on account of the pressing demands of his business, was compelled to resign before the completion of the term for which he was elected. For nearly fifteen years he was a delegate to the Republican State Conven- tion, and for many years served as a member of the Repub- lican State Central Committee. He was one of the original members of the Providence Board of Trade, 1868, and served on the Executive Committee for three years, ending in January, 1879. He was also one of the originators, in 1879, of the Providence Commercial Club, composed of prominent and enterprising business men, combined for promoting and developing the business resources of the city. For several years he served as a trustee of the Me- chanics' Savings Bank of Providence. In 1869 Mr. Ayls- worth united with the Mathewson Street Methodist Episco- pal Church, in Providence, with which he continued until 1876, when he withdrew from that communion and united with the Union Congregational Church. In 1875 he served as chairman of the committee to raise money to liquidate the church debt of the former, and in 1878 was a member of a similar committee in the latter society, both commit- tees being successful in accomplishing the object for which they were appointed. To the various benevolent, tempe-

rance, and military organizations, he has been a liberal contributor. Mr. Aylsworth married, June 1I, 1857, Margaret Miller Hatfield, daughter of Elisha and Eliza- beth (Miller) Hatfield, of White Plains, New York, and sister of the Rev. Dr. Hatfield, of Chicago, Illinois. They have five children,-Henry Congdon, Annie Hatfield, Cora Elizabeth, Emma Lillian, and Mary.

CENDRICK, COLONEL JOSEPH HARVEY, manufac- turer, son of Joseph and Permelia (Smith) Ken- drick, was born in Winchester, New Hampshire, March 19, 1831. He is a grandson of Oliver Kendrick, a soldier in the Revolutionary army, who served throughout the war, and took part in many memorable engagements. His great-grandfather came from England, and settled at Dedham, Massachusetts. At the age of sixteen Joseph H. went to Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where he was employed for two years in the loom- harness factory of his brother, and in 1849 took charge of a branch of the business at Worcester, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1851. He then removed to Prov- idence, and became superintendent of the manufacturing department of the main branch of his brother's business, which position he continued to hold until 1862, when he enlisted as a private in the Eleventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry, and was appointed by the city authorities to recruit men to fill the quota of Providence. He recruited and organized Companies I and K of the Eleventh Regiment, and fifty men of Company A of the Twelfth Regiment Rhode Island Infantry. On the 2d of October, 1862, he was commissioned as Captain of Com- pany I, Eleventh Regiment, and ordered to the defence of Washington, where he remained about three months, after which he participated in the siege of Suffolk, Virginia. He was then ordered to Yorktown, and thence to Williams- burg, where he was on duty until the expiration of his term of service. In July, 1863, he returned to Providence and resumed his former business relations. In 1866 he and his brother started a factory at Fall River, Massachu- setts, under the firm-name of J. & J. H. Kendrick, which was carried on under his management until 1873. In the year last mentioned the several interests were consolidated in the main factory at Providence, with a branch at Fall River, under the name of the Kendrick Loom-Harness Company, with a capital of $150,000, and he has since filled the position of superintendent of the manufacturing department of the business. He has been a member of the First Light Infantry of Providence since 1861, and now holds the office of lieutenant-colonel of that organization. He is a member of the Central Congregational Church in Providence, is an efficient worker in its Sunday-school, and for twenty-one years has been the leading bass singer in the church choir. He has been connected with the prin- cipal musical societies of the city for twenty-five years,

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holding a position as one of the managers. In. 1856 lie became a member of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion of Providence, and served for some time as chairman of the Missionary Committee of the Association. He is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Ile married, June 19, 1856, Abby B. Arnold, daughter of William and Elizabeth Mary Arnold, of Cranston.

MORRISON, REV. WILLIAM VEACH, D.D., son of John and Elizabeth (Veach) Morrison, was born in West Middlesex, Mercer County, Pennsylva- nia, January 23, 1830. He is descended from the "Scotch clan MacGhillemhuire, hereditary judges of Lewis," some of which family emigrated to the North of Ireland at the close of the Reformation, and were at the famous siege of Londonderry, 1688-89, so graphically de- scribed by Macaulay. John Morrison, born in 1628, emi- grated to America near the time of the accession of the House of Hanover to the throne of Great Britain, in 1719, and settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, to which the emigrants gave the name of the city and county from which they came, made sacred to them by the valor and heroic sufferings of their ancestors in the ever-memorable events of 1641 and 1688. He died in 1736, at the reputed age of one hundred and eight years. The subject of this sketch spent the first seventeen years of his life upon a farm. After pursuing the usual academic studies, he entered Alle- ghany College in 1850, from which institution he graduated in 1854. He then spent three years at the Theological School at Concord, New Hampshire, now merged in the Boston University, graduating in 1857. He joined the Providence Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at its session in Bristol, Rhode Island, April 1, 1857, in a class of nine, in which were Rev. V. M. Cooper, now of the Mount Bellingham Church, Chelsea, Massachu- · setts, Rev. George W. Quereau, D.D., late Principal of Jennings Seminary, Illinois, and the Rev. C. H. Payne, D.D., LL.D., President of the Wesleyan University, Dela- ware, Ohio. Of no class that has entered the Providence Conference in its whole history of forty years have so many risen to distinction. Dr. Morrison's first pastoral charge was at Millville, Massachusetts. He afterwards filled im- portant pulpits in the Central Church, Norwich, Connecti- cut, Stafford Springs, Connecticut, Wellfleet, and East Weymouth, Massachusetts. In the latter place, especially, his success and popularity were very great. In 1874 he was made Presiding Elder of the Fall River District, in which he remained his full term of four years. This district em- braced all of Newport County, Rhode Island, and large portions of Bristol and Plymouth, and a part of Norfolk, Massachusetts, with 41 churches, 42 pastors, and 4703 members. He discharged the duties of this important charge with such distinguished satisfaction that at the close of his term, in 1878, the Bishop was requested to reappoint

him to a vacant district; but a rule of the episcopacy against the reappointment of a Presiding Elder for a second con- secutive term, forbade it. Hc was, therefore, appointed to Bristol, Rhode Island, in 1878. This is one of the oldest Methodist churches in Rhode Island, dating from 1791, and one of the largest and most important of any denomination in the State. Here his success and popularity exceeded those of his former pastorates. In 1881 he was appointed to IIope Street Church in Providence. Since 1874 he has been the President of the Martha's Vineyard Association, which puts him in charge of the great seaside camp-meet- ing, carried on under the auspices of that association, and in which his administration has been popular and accept- able. In 1877 his Alma Mater, Alleghany College, con- ferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. On the 5th of April, 1857, he married Mary P. Fusselman, daughter of John and Jane Fusselman, of Warren, Ohio. Their children are : William Frank, born January 11, 1858, now a student in the Medical School of Harvard Univer- sity, and Albert Long, born August 18, 1867. Dr. Mor- rison is now in the fulness of his powers, modest and un- assuming, of a pure life and spotless character, beloved and respected by all.

ARPENTER, FRANCIS W., merchant, was born in Seekonk, Massachusetts, June 24, 1831, and is a descendant of William Carpenter, of Weymouth, who came in the Bevis from Southampton in 1638. His parents were Edmund and Lemira (Tiffany) Carpenter. He was educated at Seekonk, where he pur- sued a preparatory course for college, but did not enter. At the age of seventeen he was employed in the iron store of Gilbert Congdon & Co., of Providence, and after several years of faithful service was admitted into the firm, Febru - ary 6, 1855, his partner at present (1880) being John Cong- don, son of Gilbert Congdon. Mr. Carpenter has occupied various positions of trust and responsibility. He is Presi- dent of the American National Bank of Providence; Vice- President of the People's Savings Bank of Providence ; President of the Rhode Island Horseshoe Company, a manufacturing company at Valley Falls, Rhode Island, and Buffalo, New York; Treasurer of the Fletcher Fur- nace Company, manufacturers of pig-iron, Buffalo, New York ; and formerly Vice-President of the Board of Trade in Providence. He has frequently been solicited to permit the use of his name for political office, but uniformly de- clined. He is an energetic business man, whose judg- ment is much relied upon, and whose integrity is without suspicion. He has deep convictions of duty, which he carries out in every department of life, and is a man of large sympathies, interested in all benevolent operations. In 1854 he united with the Richmond Street Congrega- tional Church, and is now a member of the Central Congre- gational Church, the Sabbath-sehool of which he has for

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some time been superintendent. From 1868 to 1870 he was President of the Young Men's Christian Association of Providence. He married, May 5, 1853, Anna Davis Barney, of Seekonk, Massachusetts, who died December 9, 1864. On the 5th of June, 1867, he married Harriet Zerviah Pope, of Providence. ' His children by the first marriage were Emma Annie, deceased ; Edmund, Frank, Clara, deceased; Mary Anna, and Idelette. The names of his children by his second marriage are Harriet Armington, Gilbert Congdon, Julia Swain, and Hannah.

Gcu ARROWS, REV. COMFORT EDWIN, D.D., son of Comfort and Mela (Blake) Barrows, was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, December 11, 1831. He is a descendant of John Barrows, who died in 1692, and who was the first of this name to emigrate to this country. His boyhood was passed on the farm which had been in the family for generations, and which is said to have been "never purchased, unless from the Indians." His father and mother were deeply interested in the work of foreign missions from its very beginning under Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice, and also in ministerial education. Very early he himself evinced the desire for a liberal education, which, however, on account of family reverses, was not speedily gratified. The way. at length being opened, he entered the preparatory school at New Hampton, New Hampshire; but after a single term, as the school was about to be removed, he left and enrolled himself as a pupil in Pierce Academy, at Middleboro, Mas- sachusetts, of which Professor J. W. P. Jenks was princi- pal, and Professor C. C. Burnett, classical instructor. He was matriculated at Brown University in 1854, the last year of Dr. Wayland's presidency, and was graduated in 1858, under the presidency of Dr. Sears. The same year he entered Newton Theological Institution, from which he was graduated in 1861. On the 25th of December of that year he was ordained pastor of the Baptist Church in South Danvers (now Peabody), Massachusetts, where he labored successfully for over three years, and then accepted a call to become pastor of the First Baptist Church in New- port, Rhode Island, where he has continued since March 12, 1865. For two years he was President of the State Missionary Society of his denomination, and from 1873 to 1876 was a member of the Board of the American Baptist Missionary Union. He has made occasional and able con- tributions to his denominational journals and to theological reviews. On the IIth of February, 1872, a sermon in com- memoration of the life and services of the Rev. Erastus Willard, for twenty-one years a missionary in France, was delivered by Mr. Barrows in the First Baptist Church in Salem, New York, where Mr. Willard had served as pastor during the last six years of his life. This sermon was soon after published by Gould & Lincoln, of Boston. The sum- mer of 1872 Mr. Barrows spent in Europe. In 1874 he

was elected President of the Rhode Island Baptist State Convention, and by special appointment of that body dc- livered, May 12, 1875, at its Semi-Centennial Anniversary, a historical discourse on " The Development of Baptist Principles in Rhode Island," which discourse was pub- lished by the Convention, and received very considerable attention, being widely and favorably noticed by the press, and subsequently issued in Philadelphia by the American Baptist Publication Society. The history of the First Bap- tist Church in Newport was embodied in a discourse de- livered by him on Thanksgiving Day, November 30, 1876, and published in an octavo pamphlet of sixty-four pages. An abridgment of the same was the next year inserted in the Associational Minutes of the State. . On the 30th of December, 1877, he delivered an address, afterwards printed by the family, commemorative of Benjamin B. Howland, who for fifty consecutive years was clerk of the town and city of Newport. In the spring of 1878 Mr. Barrows was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of Brown University. In 1881 he received from Colby University the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. He married, January 1, 1862, Harriet Willmarth Willard, daughter of Erastus and Sarah (Clarke) Willard.

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 119

Author: National biographical publishing co., pub Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Providence, National biographical publishing co. Number of Pages: 868

Author: National biographical publishing co., pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Providence, National biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 868