The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 121

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

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Portsmouth, Rhode Island. They have two children, Ivah Eunice and Isaac Philip. Dr. Greene is widely known and highly respected as a skilful physician and a man of superior intellectual attainments, enterprising spirit, and unexceptional moral character.

ALLENDER, WALTER, merchant, was born in Stir- ling, Scotland, January 9, 1834. His parents were James and Christian (Reid) Callender, who had one other son, whose name was Robert. James Cal- lender was an extensive manufacturer of shawls, Scotch-plaids, and carpets in Stirling. His father was also a manufacturer near the same place. The subject of this sketch was educated in the common and high schools of Stirling. He prepared to enter college, but finally decided to engage in the drygoods business. He served as clerk for four years in the store of his uncle, Walter Reid, in his native town, and then went to Glasgow, where he was em- ployed for about three years in the store of J. W. Campbell & Co. In the spring of 1857 he came to the United States, and soon after his arrival in this country obtained a situ- ation in the house of Kinmonth & Co., in Boston. Immedi- ately on the breaking out of the Rebellion, in April, 1861, he enlisted in the Fourth Battalion Rifles, in the Massachu- setts Militia, which was afterward merged into the Thirteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers. He was mustered into the United States service as a member of Company C of that regiment June 29, 1861, and served three years in the Army of the Potomac, participating in the battles of Bolivar, Hancock, Winchester, Slaughter Mountain, Rappahannock, Thoroughfare Gap, Second Bull Run, and other engage- ments. On the 29th of July, 1863, he was detailed to the Quartermaster-General's Department at Washington, Dis- trict Columbia, where he remained until August 1, 1866. While serving in that department he commanded Company D, First Regiment Quartermaster's (colored) Volunteers for the defence of Washington, being commissioned as captain August 19, 1864. In 1866 he returned to Boston, where he was employed for a short time in the drygoods house of Hogg, Brown & Taylor, the successors of his former employers in that city. In the fall of 1866 he formed a copartnership with John McAuslan, a clerk in the house of Hogg, Brown & Taylor, and John E. Troup, an employe of Churchill, Watson & Co., drygoods dealers in Boston, and they established the Boston store, on the one price plan, in Low's Building, on Westminster Street, Providence. They immediately began to do an extensive business, which increased so rapidly as to necessitate their removal to en- larged quarters in 1873. In that year they purchased a lot corner of Westminster and Union streets, and erected there- on the commodious four-story block in which their business has ever since been carried on. They are engaged in both the retail and wholesale drygoods trade, employ over two hundred clerks, and rank among the most honorable and

successful merchants of New England. Through their aid and counsel many of their former clerks have established drygoods stores in different places in New England. Mr. Callender is a member of Prescott Post No. 1, Grand Army of the Republic, of Providence; St. John's Lodge, Ancient Frce and Accepted Masons, of Providence; the Boston Caledonian Society, the Providence Caledonian Society, and other fraternities. He united with the Beneficent Con- gregational Church in 1867, having taken a letter from the First Presbyterian Church of Boston. He was formerly a member of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Glasgow, Scotland, which he joined when he was eighteen years of age. He married, April 3, 1866, Ann Oswald Crow, daughter of William and Sarah (Reevie) Crow, and a na- .tive of Glasgow, but who came to Boston in her childhood. They have four children, Walter Reid, Robert, William, and John. In 1880 Mr. Callender bought the Burgess estate, corner of High and Burgess streets, Providence, where he now resides. He has visited Europe three times on business, and the last time travelled extensively with his wife in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe.

HOYT, DAVID WEBSTER, A.M., Principal of the Providence High School, having special charge of the English and Scientific Department, was born at Amesbury Ferry, Massachusetts, April 16,

1833. His parents were Enoch and Elizabeth (Williams) Hoyt. He early showed a fondness for study, especially for mathematics. After graduating at the Put- nam Free School in Newburyport, in which he was for two years a teacher, he entered Brown University, taking a partial course under the "New System," so-called, in- augurated by President Wayland. While in college he was identified with the class of 1855. After leaving the Univer- sity, he was for a time Principal of Union School, No. 1, Be- loit, Wisconsin ; afterwards taught a few months at Blanch- ard Academy, Pembroke, New Hampshire, and had charge of the Grammar School at Newton Upper Falls, Mass. He was one year principal of the High School in Lexington, Mass .; one year Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Mechanics, and Instructor in the Preparatory Department of the Polytechnic College of the State of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia ; and from August, 1859, to November, 1863, Professor of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences in the New Hampton Institution, Fairfax, Vermont. Since Feb- ruary, 1864, he has been an active and efficient teacher in the Providence High School. In 1875 and 1876 he was President of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction. In addition to his duties as a teacher, he was for some years engaged in revising manuscripts and reading proofs of mathematical textbooks. In 1871 he published a gene- alogical history of the Hoyt, Haight, and Hight families, upon which he spent over five years of labor, going to England to consult the ancestral records, writing fifteen hundred letters, and distributing over seven thousand cir-

(Miller Callender

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Culars. It makes an octavo volume of 698 pages. Mr. ! Hoyt has long been an active and consistent member of the Baptist Church, holding the office of clerk and deacon. He was the first secretary of the Rhode Island Baptist So- cial Union, which office he held from 1871 to 1879. He was also for some years corresponding secretary of the Providence Young Men's Christian Association. In 1861 he received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Middlebury College, Vermont, and again, in 1872, from Brown University. He married, April 9, 1856, Mary E. Pierce, daughter of J. M. and F. S. Pierce, of Brighton, Massachusetts. She died in 1867. One son, Albert Pierce Hoyt, was graduated from Brown University in the class of 1878, and is now teller of the First National Bank, Providence. Mr. Hoyt married for his second wife, De- cember 16, 1868, Martha Jane Guild, daughter of Deacon Reuben and Olive (Morse) Guild, of West Dedham, Mas- sachusetts. The fruits of this marriage being a daughter, Elizabeth Guild, and two sons, Harold Williams, and Per- cival Chase. Percival C. died November 7, 1880.

ULLEN, REV. GEORGE, D.D., son of Joseph and Frances G. (Boardman) Bullen, was born in New Sharon, Maine, November 8, 1833. His mother was the youngest daughter of Rev. Sylvanus and Phebe Boardman, and sister of Rev. George Dana Boardman, of honored missionary name. He attended the common schools, and graduated from Colby University in 1853. In 1858 he graduated from Newton Theological Institution, and in 1858-9 visited Europe and further pros- ecuted his studies. In 1860 he received ordination to the ministry as pastor of the Bloomfield Baptist Church in Skowhegan, Maine, where he remained two and a half years. In the meantime he served, in 1862-3, in the Civil War as chaplain of the Sixteenth Regiment of Maine Vol- unteers. His second settlement was with the Baptist Church in Wakefield, Massachusetts, where he served three years, when, for a while, he was obliged to discontinue his labors on account of impaired health. In 1868 he settled with the First Baptist Church in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where he still remains. He has taken an active interest in educational matters. In 1880 he received from Colby University the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He is one of the Board of Trustees of Newton Theological In- stitution, and has presided over the Backus Historical Society. For several years he has been the President of the Rhode Island Baptist State Convention. His schol- arship, piety, sound judgment, and untiring industry have secured for him a large place in the confidence and esteem of both ministers and people, and in the councils of the Baptist denomination. He married, March 28, 1860, Maria Jane Ripley, third daughter of Professor Henry J. Ripley, D.D., of Newton Theological Institution, and has three sons, Dana R., Joseph E., and Walter B.

OVES, THOMAS POYNTON, Acting Lieutenant-Comman- der, U. S. N., the only son of Moses Brown and Anna Allen (Dorr) Ives, was born in Providence, January 17, 1834. In his childhood and youth he en- joyed every advantage for mental training that wealth and affection could command. Being seriously troubled with a disease in his eyes, and compelled in consequence to depend largely on hearing rather than on sight for the acquisition of knowledge, he was placed, at the age of thirteen, under the tuition of a private tutor, Mr. Reuben A. Guild, then a member of the senior class in Brown University. With him he remained three years, acquiring a good knowledge of the rudiments, including geometry, of which he was especially fond, and developing a taste for literature and history, by listening to daily readings from such authors as Goldsmith, Irving, Hume, Shakes- peare, and Macaulay. He particularly delighted in listen- ing to the simple narratives of the Gospels, and seemed never to weary of the Sermon on the Mount. He was subsequently under the tutorage of Mr. James B. Angell, then a recent graduate of the University, now the distin- guished President of Michigan University. With him he remained two years. Mr. Angell speaks with pleasure of certain marked peculiarities of character which he exhib- ited; his love for the physical sciences ; his early-devel- oped tastes for nautical pursuits ; his regard for the sub- stantial rather than the showy ; his great conscientiousness and adherence to the truth; and his perseverance, which led him to aim to secure desired results, no matter what obstacles there might be to overcome. The trouble with his eyes caused liim to decide not to take a full course of collegiate study, but to confine himself to those scientific and other studies necessary to be pursued in order to ob- tain the degree of " Bachelor of Philosophy." With this degree he graduated at Brown University in September, 1854. He devoted some time to the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Ely and in attendance upon the lectures of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in the city of New York. Not purposing, however, to practice medicine, he did not take the degree of M.D. During the years 1857 and 1858 he travelled in this country and in Europe. The death of his father in 1857 was the occasion of his becom- ing a partner in the firm of Brown & Ives, and assuming many of the important positions which his father had held during his useful and honored life. In the midst of plans which he had formed and was maturing as a merchant, there came the demand of the government on the patriotic citizens of the country to take up arms againt the Southern Rebellion. At once, says his uncle, Henry C. Dorr, " he offered to the government his own yacht, the Hope, and his personal services without pay, in any department in which they might be available." The Secretary of the Treasury tendered to Mr. Ives a commission as lieutenant in the revenue service, to perform duty on the blockade of the southern coast. He went in his yacht to the Chesa-

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peake in the summer of 1861. It was a port of peculiar peril. Rebel sympathizers were cverywhere to be found in Maryland, and marksmen, lurking in ambush along the shores of the bay, might have made him the victim of their unerring shots. Lieutenant Ivcs was anxious for service that was more stirring, and in which he believed he could render more efficient aid to his country. He went so far as to offer to build and fit out a vessel at his own expense, provided he could be commissioned by the government as its chief officer. At this time General Burnside was getting ready the expedition to North Carolina. The offer of the command of a steamer was made to Lieutenant Ives, and he resigned his commission in the revenue service in Novem- ber, 1861, and on his return to Providence he was com- missioned by Governor Sprague Assistant Adjutant-Gene- ral of the State of Rhode Island, with the rank of Captain, and was "relieved from duty to take part in General Burnside's Coast Expedition, at the special request of Gen- eral Burnside." He at once took command'of the pro- peller Picket, which was selected by General Burnside as his flag-ship, and sailed from Annapolis, January 1I, 1862, and after many perils, reached the destination of the fleet, Roanoke Island. In the attack made upon the Rebel position Captain Ives occupied a conspicuous position. The result of the enterprise is well known. After the taking of Newbern, North Carolina, Captain Ives was sent in his steamer to Washington, as the bearer of dispatches. The naval expedition having accomplished its purpose, he asked to be relieved from duty in North Carolina, and his request being granted, he returned to his home to secure needed rest after the fatigue and excitement through which he had passed. In a short time we find him again on duty, having been appointed Acting Master in the United States Navy, and stationed at Aquia Creek. He rendered most acceptable service in checking the operations of the enemy and enforcing the blockade. For his services in this de- partment of his duties he received the warm commendations of the Secretary of the Navy, and the following communi- cation was addressed to him under date of May 26, 1863 : " Having been officially mentioned for efficient and gallant conduct, you are hereby promoted to the grade of Acting Volunteer Lieutenant in the navy of the United States." The spring and summer of 1863 were spent in the per- formance of his duties as a naval officer. Among the most important of these duties was the guarding, by the flotilla with which he was connected, the upper waters of the Chesapeake, when the Rebels were invading Pennsylvania, and so much doubt hung over the fortunes of the country, until that doubt was dispelled by the victories at Gettys- burg. He was so much worn by the continued labors and hardships of so many months, that he was compelled to re- tire for a season from active duty. In the communication which he addressed to the IIon. Gideon Welles, the Sec- retary of the Navy, he makes the following disposition of whatever may be due to him for his services : " I presume

it will appear that there is an amount standing to my credit as due me for my services since I entered the navy of the United States. As it is my purpose to draw no pay for any services which I have rendered to my country during the present war, I respectfully request that any sums so appearing on the books of the Auditor may remain in the Treasury, and that the accounts may thus be closed." After a few weeks of relaxation he was invited to act as ordnance officer in Washington, where his services were regarded as of so much value that he was promoted to the grade of Lieutenant Commander November 7, 1864. In the following spring he sailed for Europe. His health so far improved that he hoped to be able to enter again the service of his country. While abroad he was married, October 19, 1865, in Vienna, to Elizabeth Cabot Motley, daughter of the Hon. John Lothrop Motley, Minister of the United States at the Court of Austria. He had pro- ceeded as far as Havre on his return to his home, when the insidious disease which for some time had been under- mining his constitution, gained the mastery over him, and he died November 17, 1865. The interest he had cher- ished in the institutions of his native city, which were linked with the honored names of his father and his uncle, Rob- ert H. Ives, he showed by the munificent bequests which were found in his will. He gave fifty thousand dollars to the Rhode Island Hospital, ten thousand dollars to the Providence Athenæum, and five thousand dollars to the Providence Dispensary.

VES, ROBERT HALE, JR., only son of Robert Hale and Harriet Bowen (Amory) Ives, was born in Provi- dence, April 3, 1837. He was fitted for college at the University Grammar School, and graduated at Brown University in the class of 1857. Shortly after his grad- uation he left home for the purpose of travelling in Europe. A year was thus spent under circumstances of peculiar in- terest, and in the society of those for whom he had a special affection. Returning to his native city he entered the count- ing-house of Brown & Ives, and began what he supposed would be his life-work,-the calling of a merchant. In the fall of 1859 he again visited Europe and spent another year in foreign travel. On his return he entered into part- nership with his cousins, Messrs. Goddard Brothers, Provi- dence. At once he began to identify himself with the interests which for so many years had been fostered by those who were nearest and dearest to him. At Easter, in 1859, he had become a communicant at St. Stephen's Church, then under the rectorship of Rev. Dr. Waterman. He was chosen a member of the vestry and manifested a warm personal concern in all matters that affected the pros- perity of the church of his choice and his affections. His vocation, as a man of business, he did not consider his call- ing in life. In the charitable and literary institutions of his native city, he took the same sort of interest which his

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honored father had taken for so many years, and he was preparing to assume the responsibilities connected with their management which his father so long had borne. When the Civil War began he was ready to respond to the call of his country. Although constrained, for reasons which satisfied both his heart and his conscience, to remain at home during the first year of the war, he did all in his power to promote the enlistment of soldiers, and to provide in every possible way for their comfort. The second sum- mer of the war was a season of bitter disappointment to the friends of the government, in consequence of continued defeat and disaster. The hour of romance and military enthusiasm had passed away, and the nation was called to confront the grim realities of war. It was then that Mr. Ives decided to engage in the military service of the gov- ernment. He accordingly offered his services at his own charges to General Rodman, lately appointed a brigadier general, as volunteer aid, on his personal staff. The offer was accepted and he was commissioned a lieutenant by the governor of Rhode Island, August 19, 1862. Near the close of this month General Rodman resumed his duties in the Army of the Potomac, and his new aid shortly after joined him at Washington. General Rodman had com- mand of the third division in the Ninth Corps under General Burnside, and the position of Lieutenant Ives was one of great responsibility and attended with laborious service. The Corps commenced its movement into Maryland, at that time threatened to be overrun by the Rebel forces, on the 7th of September. The enemy was driven without a bat- tle from the city of Frederick. Soon came the famous bat- tle at South Mountain, during which Lieutenant Ives was under continuous fire through the entire day. On the 17th occurred the battle of Antietam, in which both armies dis- played the greatest courage and fought with the utmost de- termination. The division of General Rodman had a most important duty to perform, in the discharge of which it was exposed to a galling fire from the enemy. In a charge made by the Federal troops, both the brave commander, General Rodman, and his equally brave aid fell mortally wounded. The latter was struck in the thigh by a cannon- ball, which produced a fearful flesh wound, although the bone was not broken. He was at once borne off the field of battle, and tenderly cared for by his own servant, George Griffin, who had entered his service in England in 1860. He was attended by Surgeons Rivers and Millar, his own townsmen. At first it was not thought that his wound would be fatal, and although he suffered greatly he was uniformly hopeful, and expressed his belief that after a few weeks' residence in his Rhode Island home he would be able to resume his place in the army. The arrival of his father, accompanied by Doctor L. L. Miller, an accom- plished surgeon of Providence, was a source of intense grati- fication to him. Such was his condition that it was deem- ed safe to remove him from the field hospital, where he had been lying for several days, to Hagerstown, Maryland,

where he found a home in the hospitable mansion of Mrs. Howard Kennedy. Everything that skill and kindness could do for the sufferer was done. But the wound was too severe and the shock too great to his system to permit his friends to cherish more than the faintest hope that he would be able to rally, and at length, even this faint hope faded away. The announcement that death was approach- ing was received with the calmness of Christian resignation. The hour which he had anticipated had come, and the closing moments of a brief but happy life were not embit- tered by the thought that preparation for the end of his earthly career had not been made. He died at Hagers- town, September 27, 1862. His stricken friends brought back to his native city all that was mortal of him who, but a few weeks before, had left the endearments of home to give his own life for the life of his country. On the first day of October funeral services were performed in St. Stephen's Church, and all that was mortal of the heroic young soldier was laid away in the sepulchre. Opposite the principal entrance of the church where he had so often worshipped is a memorial window, placed there in com- memoration of his many virtues. In one of its divisions is the inscription, ROBERT HALE IVES, JR., ANTIETAM, 1862. Two appropriate passages from the Bible are in the other division.

OPPIN, COURTLAND, M.D., the youngest son of Thomas C. and Harriet D. (Jones) Hoppin, was born in Providence, September 5, 1834. He was fitted for college in the University Grammar School of his native city, and was a graduate of Brown University in the class of 1855. Having chosen the medi- cal profession he pursued his studies under the direction of Drs. Barrows and Hoppin, and attended lectures in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he received his degree in the spring of 1860. He opened an office in Providence, where he continued in the practice of his profession for the remainder of his life. For about five years he was the partner of Dr. Ira Barrows, with whose brother Dr. Washington Hoppin had been associated for some time. It has been remarked of Dr. Hoppin that "he was singularly fitted for ministering to the sick and the suffering. His perceptions were quick and his judg- ments sound ; his sympathies were active and his manners exceedingly kindly, and though his career was so brief, he attained a large practice and was held in high esteem as a physician." The service which he rendered the Children's Home in Providence covered a period of fifteen years, and was highly appreciated by the managers and patrons of that excellent institution. Dr. Hoppin was singularly gifted with the peculiar tastes which, if thoroughly cultivated, would have made him an accomplished artist. He pub- lished several praiseworthy efforts on subjects connected with art. He married, in November, 1863, Mary Frances, daughter of Joseph W. Clark, of Boston, who with three

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children survived him. IIc died in the prime of his life and of his usefulness, in Providence, October 19, 1876.

BALL, LIEUTENANT WILLIAM WARE, son of Rev. Dr. Edward B. and Harrict (Ware) Hall, was born in Providence, October 27, 1834. He pur- sued his preparatory studies in the public and high schools of his native city, and was a graduate of Harvard University in the class of 1853. The two years which followed his graduation were devoted to teaching. Having decided to study for the ministry in the Unitarian denomination, with which his father had so long been con- nected, he pursued for three years the regular course of study in the Divinity School at Cambridge, graduating in the class of 1858. Having completed his studies at the Divinity School, he decided to spend two ycars abroad and secure the advantages connected with foreign travel and intercourse with scholars of other lands. During the troubles in Rome, in 1860, he was for a time exposed to great peril, and narrowly escaped with his life from the rude attacks of the French soldiery. The purpose which carried him abroad having been accomplished, he returned to his native land and commenced what he intended should be his life-work, that of a preacher. Without settling in a particular locality he supplied the pulpits of Unitarian churches without pastors, intending at what he thought to be the proper time to settle over a parish. While thus oc- cupied the Civil War commenced, and he caught the enthu- siasm which was firing the hearts of the people. He vol- unteered his services and was commissioned a First Lieu- tenant of Company B, in a Rhode Island battalion, which was afterwards known as the Fifth Rhode Island Volun- teers. He was at the battles of Roanoke and Fort Macon, under General Burnside, and passed through an experience for which the sort of life he had lived as a student had poorly fitted him. The fatigue and hardships incident, even under the best circumstances, to the soldier's life gave a great shock to his system. He resigned his position in the summer of 1862 and returned home, where he somewhat recovered his health and strength. Desirous of still serv- ing his country, and yielding to impulses which led him to seek an opportunity to be useful to his fellow-men, he offered his services as a teacher of freedmen on Saint He- lena Island, Port Royal. Once more leaving his home he went South to the place to which he had been assigned, and here, for a year and a half, with great fidelity and un- wearied patience and kindness, he devoted himself to the moral and intellectual improvement of the colored people, winning the esteem of his associates and the warm love of his pupils. This work of love he continued to perform until his health and strength gave way under it, and he was compelled to retire from it. He reached his home July I, 1864. His sickness was a brief one, lasting but six weeks, and terminating with his death, which occurred August 9,

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 121

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