The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 130

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

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BIOGRAPHIICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

ARNEFIELD, THOMAS PIERCE, lawyer, was born G in Boston, Massachusetts, March 25, 1844. He is a son of John Barnefield, formerly of Gloucester- shire, England, and of Eliza Hayden Thayer, a descendant in the seventh generation of John Alden, onc of the Pilgrims of Leyden, who came in the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. When the subject of this sketch was seven years of age his father died, leaving the family without pecuniary resources. At ten years of age he was taken from school and placed on a farm, and had only the limited educational advantages of the winter terms of the district school. In 1862 he enlisted in the Thirty- fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and was with his company through the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. After the latter battle he was detailed from his regiment to perform provost duty at one of the division headquarters of the Ninth Army Corps, and served in this branch of the service through the cam- paign in Mississippi, which included the battle of Jackson and the fall of Vicksburg. Before his term of enlistment was ended he was honorably discharged in consequence of impaired health. Subsequently he re-entered the ser- vice, and assisted in raising a company for the Sixtieth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, in which he was com- missioned a second lieutenant. He was promoted to the first lieutenancy of the same company, and served until the end of the war. Soon afterward he removed to Paw- tucket, Rhode Island, and began the study of law in the office of Hon. P. E. Tillinghast, at the same time giving some attention to general newspaper work as a regular cor- respondent. He was admitted to the bar in 1870, and has since pursued the practice of law in Pawtucket. In 1871 he was chosen a member of the Court of Magistrates of Pawtucket ; in 1879 was elected a member of the General Assembly ; and the same year received an appointment as Assistant Judge-Advocate General. In 1879 he was elected Judge of Probate for the town of Pawtucket. He is a mem- ber of the Congregational Church in Pawtucket, of which he has been treasurer since April, 1870, and is now the superintendent of its Sunday school. He married, October 25, 1871, Clara Josephine Paine, daughter of Joseph H. and Frances Paine, of Pawtucket. They have three children : Florence May, Harold Chester, and Ralph Tillinghast.

HITE, ZEBULON LEWIS, A.M., editor, son of Zeb- ulon Pierce and Sarah Chase (Walker) White, was born in Norton, Massachusetts, July 23, 1842. His father, born in Norton in 1810, taught school in several towns in Bristol County, Massa- chusetts ; removed in 1850 to Pawtucket, Rhode Island ; became in 1861 a member of the firm of Z. P. & J. S. White, iron founders ; retired from business in 1880; has been for forty years a " non-resistant," and long active in the Rhode Island Peace Society. This White family, of

English origin, settled in Bristol County, Massachusetts, soon after the planting of Plymouth Colony. The mothier of the subject of this sketch was a daughter of Richmond Walker, of Swanscy, Massachusetts. The genealogy of this family has been published. Zebulon L. was prepared for college in the Pawtucket High School, under William E. Tolman; entered Tufts College in 1862 and graduated in 1866. Political economy and metaphysics were his favorite studies. While in college, during four winter va- cations, he taught school in Swansey village, Massachusetts. After graduation, for one year he was principal of the Cen- tral Falls High School, Rhode Island. Resigning in 1867, he removed to New York city and became a reporter on the New York Tribune staff. In the autumn of the same year he became real estate editor of that paper, and in the winter following became assistant city editor. During a part of 1868 he wrote political letters to the Tribune from the interior of New York State, and shortly became assist- ant political editor. January 1, 1869, he was appointed night editor, and in May following was made day editor. In November, 1870, he was chosen chief Washington cor- respondent of that paper, a position which he filled with great efficiency till October, 1880. In May, 1871, he tele- graphed to the New York Tribune from Washington the full text of the Treaty of Washington, then just signed by the Joint High Commissioners of the United States and Great Britain. When summoned before a committee of the United States Senate, on refusing to tell where he ob- tained a copy of the treaty, he was arrested and arraigned at the bar of the Senate. Refusing to answer the interro- gations of Vice-President Colfax, after two days' discussion, he was ordered into close custody, but, after an imprison- ment of ten days in a room in the Capitol, was released by vote of the Senate. Subsequently, for refusing to answer the questions of a Congressional committee, he was indicted in the criminal court of the District of Colum- bia, but the indictment was quashed before arrest. In 1872 he had charge of the force of correspondents sent by the Tribune to report the national political conventions, and spent the summer of that year in travelling and writing for the paper political letters from New York State, Penn- sylvania, and North Carolina. In the spring of 1873 he made a journey through Missouri, Indian Territory, Texas, and Louisiana, for the purpose of writing descriptive letters to the Tribune, and spent the summer, till October Ist, in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, writ- ing respecting the "Granger Movement." These letters were subsequently collected and printed in a Tribune extra. In the same autumn he wrote political letters for the Tribune from the interior of New York. Most of the summer of 1874 he spent in the " Ku-Klux " regions of Alabama, describing affairs. To this series of letters his initials, " Z. L. W.," were first affixed. During the same season he made a trip of five weeks through the regions of Minnesota and Iowa that were afflicted with the grasshop-

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per plague. The spring of 1875 was spent in inspecting the canals of New York and writing criticisms upon the contracts for their repair and improvement. Two months of the summer were spent in Central Georgia writing of the alleged negro insurrection. In the same year he wrote the annual series of letters about the politics of interior New York. In 1876 he was the Tribune's chief corre- spondent at the national political conventions, and also wrote. political letters from Maine, Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, and witnessed the counting of the vote of Louisiana in New Orleans in the presence of the " Visiting Statesmen." In the same year he wrote a series of special articles on the "Silver Question " that attracted wide attention. In the autumn of 1878 he made a trip incog. through the low country of South Carolina, exposing the " tissue-ballot " frauds in the then recent elec- tion. From May to November, 1879, he visited the mining regions of Colorado, Dakota, Montana, and Utah. His letters written this season were collected and published in two Tribune extras. In the summer of 1880 he was again the Tribune's chief correspondent at the national political conventions. The remainder of the season was spent in the mining regions of Colorado and New Mexico. His letters of this year were collected and reprinted in two Tribune extras. During all the winters from 1870 to 1880 he was in charge of the Tribune's office in Washington, D. C., and was its chief correspondent. In 1861 he united with the Universalist Church in Pawtucket. In 1878 he was chosen trustee of the Universalist Society in Washing- ton, and for six years, ending in 1880, he was superinten- dent of the Universalist Sunday school in the same city. In 1872 he was elected a trustee of Tufts College, a posi- tion which he still holds. He resigned his position on the editorial staff of the New York Tribune October 16, 1880, and became editor of the Providence Evening Press and the Providence Morning Star, in Providence, Rhode Island, where he is now effectively wielding his ready and polished pen. He married, January II, 1871, Emma M. Drum- mond, daughter of Malonzo J. Drummond, of New York city. She died in Washington, D. C., December 15, 1879. He has four children living : Jennie, Zebulon L., Jr., Wil- liam Penn, and Marguerite.

ANN, THOMAS HENRY, M.D., son of Levi and Lydia Laurana (Ware) Mann, was born at North Wrentham, Massachusetts, April 8, 1843, being the eldest of six children. Levi Mann was for several years one of the selectmen of the town of Wrentham, and when the new town of Norfolk was set off from Wrentham-mainly from North Wrentham-he was the first selectman elected in the new town, and held the chairmanship of the Board for six years, at the end of which time he was obliged to decline a re-election on account of the infirmities of age. The subject of this sketch is a

direct descendant of Thomas Mann, who was the first set- tled minister of the town of Wrentham, and from whom also descended Horace Mann, the distinguished educator, and Thomas and Samuel Mann of Mannville, Rhode Isl- and. The homestead in North Wrentham (now Norfolk), where Dr. Mann was born, is a part of the same estate which has been in possession of the family since the set- tlement of Wrentham, and has never been incumbered by a mortgage. The house now standing was erected ninety years ago, very near the site of the one owned by Dr. Mann's great-grandfather, Moses Mann, which was burned to the ground while the family were at church. It is built of oak throughout, and its timbers were cut, hewn and raised by the town's people. Dr. Mann was employed upon the farm until he was sixteen years of age, the winter months being spent in the district school, where he acquired a good common-school education. He subsequently entered the High School at Walpole, Massachusetts, and was about to graduate when the Civil War began. On the 20th of May, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company I, Eigh- teenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, and partici- pated with his regiment in the siege of Yorktown, Vir- ginia, the battles of Hanover Court-house, the seven days' battles in front of Richmond, the second battle of Bull Run, the battle of Antietam, the engagement at Fredericks- burg, under General Burnside, the battles of Chancellors- ville and Gettysburg, and was taken prisoner during the battle of the Wilderness, May 5, 1864, only fifteen days before the expiration of his term of service. He was pro- moted to corporal, and then to sergeant of his company. He was held a prisoner for ten months at Andersonville, Georgia, and Florence, South Carolina, being exchanged two months before the close of the war, March 1, 1865. After the war he taught school in Masonville, New York, · one winter, in Ionia, Michigan, one winter, and in North Wrentham, one winter. He had charge of the seventh ward of the Insane Asylum at Kalamazoo, Michigan, for nearly a year, and then entered the office of his uncle, Dr. H. M. Paine, of Albany, as a student of medicine, at the same time attending the Albany Medical College. During the years 1869-70 he was Resident Physician at the Albany City Dispensary, and received his diploma from the Albany Medical College December 24, 1870. He spent the re- mainder of the winter of 1870-7 1 in the Bellevue Hospital, New York, and commenced the practice of medicine in Willimantic, Connecticut, in March, 1871. Having never fully recovered from the effects of the sufferings he endured in Andersonville prison, his health broke down and he was obliged to relinquish a large practice. In the fall of 1872 he removed to Block Island, where he remained for four years, being the only physician on the Island. In 1876, his health having been fully restored, he removed to Woon- socket, Rhode Island, where he has since been engaged in a lucrative practice. Dr. Mann married, March 3, 1869, Julia Backus, daughter of Salmon and Caroline (Burgevin)

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Backus, of Ashford, Connecticut. Their children are Bertha Virginia, Mary Isadore, Josephinc Caroline, Henry Levi, and Philip James. Mrs. Mann's uncle, General Henry A. Burgevin, succeeded General Ward in China, and in an engagement was taken prisoner and drowned in his chains by the Chinese.

1923EHRENDS, REV. A. J. F., pastor of Union Con- gregational Church, Providence, was born at Nym- wegen, Holland, December 18, 1839. He was brought to this country at an early age by his parents, who settled in Pennsylvania, where the family re- sided for some time. He was educated at Denison Uni- versity, Granville, Ohio, where he graduated with honor in the class of 1862. Having decided to study for the ministry, he pursued a theological course at Rochester Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1865, and was ordained July 27th of that year. He first settled as pastor of the Baptist Church at Yonkers, New York, where he remained until 1873, when he accepted a call to the First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. In these pastorates he labored with great success, and by his schol- arly attainments, eloquent preaching, and faithful pastoral work secured a well earned reputation. In 1874 the de- gree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by Rich- mond College, Virginia. In 1876, his ecclesiastical views having undergone some modification, he accepted a call to become the pastor of the Union Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Island, in which relation he was installed March, 1876. During his ministry in Providence, which still continues, he has attained great popularity as a pulpit orator; the membership of his church has largely increased, and mainly through his influence and exertions a church debt of $30,000 has been paid. His preaching has been characterized by loyalty to the theological standards of his denomination, and yet by the spirit of catholicity in refer- ence to the fundamental doctrines of the Church universal. His attitude toward other denominations has been marked by liberality and kindly feeling. His sermons show care- ful study and a comprehensive grasp of his subjects. His views are presented with great logical force and perspi- cuity, and with an earnestness that carries conviction to the hearts of his hearers. His pulpit efforts are unincum- bered with notes, and ever exhibit that dignity of manner that befits sacred themes. Being an able and entertaining extemporaneous debater and successful platform speaker, his services have been much in demand on anniversary and other public occasions, and his addresses before col- lege and missionary societies have been marked by much vigor of thought and a classical style. Dr. Behrends has entered into the progressive movements of the day,-not with the spirit of an iconoclast, but with a wise discrimin- ation and conservatism, separating the true from the false, and the transient from that of permanent value. A num- ber of his sermons and addresses have been published.

During the summer of 1878 he occupied several months in European travel, visiting England and Scotland, traversed the Continent, and spent some time at the place of his birth. His letters from abroad furnished each week to his congregation a very delightful résumé of his impres- sions of foreign scenes, customs, and religious peculiarities. He married, August 24, 1865, Hattie E. Hatch, daughter of J. W. Hatch, Esq., of Rochester, New York, and has three children : Jesse H., Lillian H., and Minnie R.

BURNEY, REV. PRESTON, only son of Ichabod and Clarissa Gurney, was born at South Abington, Mas- sachusetts, March 10, 1843. The Gurneys of Ab- ington are of English descent, and were among the early settlers of the town. Mr. Gurney received the rudiments of his education in the public schools of Abing- ton ; was for a few months a student at Phillips Academy, at Exeter, New Hampshire, and for two years at Pierce Academy, Middleboro, Massachusetts. In 1862 he entered Brown University, and graduated in 1866. During his collegiate career he developed considerable poetical talent, and at his graduation was the poet of his class. He studied for the Christian ministry at Newton Theological Institu- tion, Newton Centre, Massachusetts, where he remained one year, and also for two years pursued his theological studies privately, under Rev. William Hague, D.D., then of Boston. In September, 1869, he was ordained and in- stalled in the pastorate of the Cary Avenue Baptist Church of Chelsea, Massachusetts, where he remained for four years. After one year of rest, he, in September, 1874, be- came pastor of the Baptist Church at Central Falls, Rhode Island, now the Broad Street Baptist Church, where he is still laboring successfully. Mr. Gurney was instrumental in securing the erection of new church edifices in both pastorates, and as a result of his earnest ministry, the mem- bership of both churches gradually increased, his present charge being in a very prosperous condition. He married, September 2, 1869, Maria S. Hawes, daughter of Darius Hawes, of West Wrentham, Massachusetts. They have had but one child, who died in infancy.

HURSTON, JOHN DESHON, lawyer, son of Hon. Benjamin B. and Frances E. (Deshon) Thurston, was born in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, February 27, 1842. His father and his grandfather are else- where sketched in this volume. He prepared for college in the city of New London, Connecticut, whither his father had removed while he was yet a child, and grad- uated from Brown University in the class of 1862. Choos- ing the legal profession he pursued his preliminary studies in the law office of Thurston & Ripley, in Providence, and completed them in the Law School at Cambridge, Massa- chusetts. He was admitted to the bar in Rhode Island in :

A.J. M.Behrendt

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October, 1864, and thereupon became a member of the law firm with which he had previously studied, and which on his admission was changed to Thurston, Ripley & Co., his brother, Hon. Benjamin Francis Thurston, being the senior member of the firm. He has devoted himself ex- clusively to his profession, avoiding politics, although a decided Republican. The legal firm with which he is connected is one of the most prominent in New England ; the senior member, Hon. B. F. Thurston, who devotes himself wholly to cases relative to patent-rights, is regarded as one of the ablest lawyers in this country in the line of his specialty.

KORTER, REV. EMERY HUNTINGTON, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, April 22, 1844. His father was the Rev. Emery Moulton Porter, a native of Rye, New Hampshire, and his mother, Charlotte Althea Buxton, of Newbury, Vermont. Mr. Porter was educated in the public schools of Fall River, Massa- chusetts, where his father was for fourteen years rector of the Church of the Ascension. He was prepared for col- lege in the High School, under the thorough instruction of Mr. Charles B. Goff, and in 1862 entered Brown Uni- versity, at which institution he graduated in 1866. In September of that year he entered the Philadelphia Divin- ity School, and graduated in 1869. He was ordained to the diaconate in St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, Providence, by Bishop Clark, June 27, 1869, and on the 4th of July following took charge of a new parish in Pon- tiac, Rhode Island. On the 14th of June, 1870, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Clark, in Grace Church, Providence. After serving for fourteen months as rector of All Saints Church, Pontiac, he was called to St. Paul's Church, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to succeed the Rev. Dr. George Taft, who died in 1869. Mr. Porter entered upon his duties there, October 2, 1870. He has been zealously devoted to his calling, and his ministerial career has been uniformly successful. He married, April 22, 1873, Delia Dyer Weeden, daughter of John Hull and Sarah Bowen Weeden, of Pawtucket.

REER, REV. DAVID H., rector of Grace Church (P. E.), Providence, was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, March 20, 1844. He is the son of Jacob R. and Elizabeth (Armstrong) Greer. He gradu- ated from Washington College, Pennsylvania, in July, 1862; studied for the ministry at Bexley Hall, Gam- bier, Ohio; was ordained to the diaconate by the Rt. Rev. Charles P. McIlvaine, D.D., LL.D., in June, 1866; and during his diaconate had charge of Christ Church, Clarks- burg, West Virginia. He was ordained priest at Alex- andria, Virginia, in 1868. In the fall of 1868 he accepted a call to Trinity Church, Covington, Kentucky, and re-

mained there until the spring of 1871. While in Coving- ton he was married to Caroline Augusta Keith, daughter of Q. A. and Priscilla D. Keith. In May, 1871, they went to Europe, and remained there until June, 1872. Upon their return, Mr. Greer was called to Grace Church, Provi- dence, and took charge of the parish, Sunday, September 15, 1872, and has continued rector of Grace Churchi to the present time. He stands in the front rank of preach- ers. He takes no notes into the pulpit, but his discourses are studied and put into form with the utmost care, more time being expended upon them than most clergymen give who write out their sermons in full. He has the re- markable power of reproducing in public, not only the order of thought which had been premeditated, but very much of the language in which that thought came to him, and his discourse has all the finish and accuracy of a writ- ten exercise, combined with the freshness and force of extempore speech. Mr. Greer is a very outspoken preacher, and delivers himself without much regard for the preju- dices and prepossessions of his hearers. His singular originality of thought always commands attention ; you feel that he is something more than " an organ of communica- tion;" it is the man who addresses your understanding and conscience and heart. In serving his race, he is not re- stricted to the boundaries of his own church, but readily co-operates with men of different creeds and opinions, when others are not disposed to make the way too narrow for him. He is a faithful and diligent pastor, and the com- munity at large recognize and feel his power, as a valuable aid in all great and good enterprises.

ARRIS, REV. GEORGE, pastor of the Central Con- gregational Church, Providence, Rhode Island, was born in East Machias, Maine, in April, 1844. His father was George Harris, a lumber manufac- turer and ship owner, who died in April, 1876, at the age of seventy-four years, and whose ancestry went to Maine from Easton, Massachusetts. His mother's maiden name was Mary Ann Palmer. She was born in 1810, and is still (1879) living. Her father was Robinson Palmer, who died in 1877, at the advanced age of ninety-one years, and was a lineal descendant of John Robinson of Leyden, Holland, from whose flock the Pilgrims on the Mayflower were gathered, and for whom Mr. Palmer was named. Her mother, Harriet Allen, was descended from Thomas Noble, who emigrated from England about the year 1653, and settled in Westfield, Massachusetts. Her great-grandfather was the Rev. Oliver Noble, a Congregational clergyman, who married the daughter of Abijah Weld, who, for nearly fifty years was pastor of the Congregational Church in At- tleborough, Massachusetts. Mr. Weld had a family of seven daughters, all of whom married ministers. The subject of this sketch united with the church in 1864 ; graduated at Amherst College in 1866; studied theology for one year at

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Bangor, Maine, and then entered Andover Theological Seminary, where he continued his studies for two years, graduating at that institution in 1869. He was ordained October 6, 1869, and installed pastor of the High Street Congregational Church, Auburn, Maine, where he remained until January, 1872. He was installed pastor of the Cen- tral Congregational Church, Providence, February 20, 1872. He was married, December 24, 1873, to Jane A. Viall, daughter of Colonel William and Mary B. A. Viall, of Providence. Mr. Harris is an earnest, eloquent and prac- tical preacher, and his pastoral labors in Providence and elsewhere have been attended with gratifying success. He is a director in several denominational societies, and is ever ready to lend his aid and influence in support of all move- ments calculated to advance the cause of Christianity, and to promote the welfare and happiness of his fellow-men. IIe travelled in Europe with his wife in 1875, and in 1879.

OGGESHALL, REV. FREEBORN, son of Freeborn and Eliza S. (Sherman) Coggeshall, was born in Newport, December 31, 1845. Early in his life his parents removed to Providence. He prepared for col- lege in the excellent High School of that city, and graduated at Brown University in 1867, taking the honors of his class and pronouncing the valedictory addresses at the commencement of that year. Soon after his graduation he became a member of the General Theological Seminary of the city of New York, where he took the full three years' prescribed course of study, graduating in 1870. While connected with the Seminary he spent a few months in England, and in a tour through some parts of Continental Europe. He received deacon's Orders in the Episcopal Church at the hands of Bishop Clark, June 12, 1870, and took charge of a missionary station at Elmwood, in Provi- dence. Bishop Odenheimer of New Jersey admitted him to presbyter's orders December 22, 1871, and he was set- tled nearly a year as assistant rector in the " House of Prayer," in the city of Newark, New Jersey. From Newark he removed, in October, 1872, to Boston, to accept an appointment as one of the assistant rectors of the Church of the Advent. His connection with this church closed in June, 1874, to enable him to carry out a cherished plan of pursuing theological and other studies at the University of Oxford, England. While thus engaged he was occupied also as a mission-priest of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. He had charge also of morning religious services in Oxford and the neighboring villages. Two years were thus employed, most happily for himself and with spiritual profit to those to whom he ministered. The plan was nearly completed which was to have carried him across the ocean to his home, when he was stricken down by disease, and a life which was full of promise, and bade fair to be one of great usefulness, was terminated Oc-

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 130

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