The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 23

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

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BECKWITH, TRUMAN, Merchant and Manufacturer, son of Amos and Susan (Truman) Beckwith, was born in Lynn, Conn., October 15, 1783. He had a twin-brother Daniel, who died November, 1854. During his childhood his parents removed to Mar- low, N. H., and subsequently to Putney, Vt. He came to Providence in the summer of 1792, and was placed under the care of his uncle, Dr. Nathan Truman, with whom he remained until he was twenty-two years of age. He ob- tained a somewhat limited education in the schools of Providence, and was employed for several years in his un- cle's apothecary shop, and acquired considerable knowledge of medicine. Subsequently, for about a year, he followed the trade of a saddler, and then turned his attention to mercantile pursuits. In the fall of 1806 he went to Sa- vannah, Ga., where he spent from eight to nine months each year, for nine years, in business, chiefly purchasing cotton for Providence parties, and part of the time keeping a general country store, having for his partner Ebenezer Jenckes. In November, 1817, he formed a partnership with Mr. Luther Pearson, under the name of " Beckwith & Pear- son," for the purpose of carrying on the cotton business. This partnership continued for about twelve years, being

dissolved September, 1829. Mr. Beckwith had qualities of mind and character which fitted him in a special manner for the kind of business in which he embarked. Sagacious, prompt, and as it may have sometimes seemed to others, bold almost to rashness, he saw what was likely to prove a success in his peculiar department of mercantile life, and with characteristic energy gave himself to the accomplish- ment of his ends. He became known in the community as one earnestly devoted to his calling, faithful to his promise, and expecting other men to be equally faithful to theirs. In the prosperity of the city which was his adopted home he took a deep interest. South Water Street, on which, in 1817, he built the cotton warehouse in which for so many years he had his counting-room, was greatly indebted to him for many improvements which were made upon it. For forty-five years he was one of the directors of the Blackstone Canal Bank. He was also a director in the People's Saving Bank, the Providence Gas Company, and of the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company, from the commencement of the existence of these corporations. He had a taste for architecture. He was one of the build- ing committee for the erection of the Dexter Asylum, 1827-28, and of the What Cheer building, in 1851. He retired from business in 1861, having dealt in cotton, more or less, for the long period of fifty-five years, and having been, at one time, for a number of years, the largest dealer in that article in Providence. The bulk of the large property which he left was acquired after he was seventy years old, and that, not from active business, though that had laid the foundation of it, but from the successful man- agement of his estate and by judicious investments. Mr. Beckwith died May 2, 1878. He was twice married, his first wife, whom he married August 15, 1814, being Alice D. Brown, daughter of Captain Isaac Brown. She died August 19, 1837. Their children were Susan T., Amey B., Henry T., Abby G., Amos N., and Isaac B. Mr. Beck- with's second wife was Mrs. Abby M. Cooke, who survives her husband.

ALLENDER, REV. JOHN, was born in Boston, about the year 1700, and was a graduate of Harvard Col- lege in the class of 1723. He was educated on what was known as the " Hollis foundation," estab- lished by an eminent Baptist, a London merchant, Thomas Hollis. The interest of nearly £5000, the value in 1727 of his gifts to the College, Mr. Hollis directed to he appropriated to the support of two professors, one of divinity and the other of mathematics, to the treasurer of the College, and to ten poor students of divinity. Mr. Cal- lender was the nephew of Rev. Elisha Callender, who was for twenty years the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Boston, whose ordination was made memorable by the cir- cumstance that although a Baptist, and of the sect which in those days " was everywhere spoken against," several of

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the most prominent of the Congregational ministers of Bos- ton took part in the services. Dr. Cotton Mather preached the sermon, and Dr. Increase Mather gave the right hand of fellowship. We arc told that " the report of this cxpression of catholicism in England induced Thomas Hollis, Esq., a wealthy merchant of the Baptist persuasion, to become one of the most liberal benefactors to Cambridge College that it ever enjoyed." After the graduation of John Cal- lender, the subject of this sketch, he was ordained col- league with Rev. William Peckham, as pastor of the Bap- tist Church in Newport, October 13, 1731, and continued in office a little over sixteen years. He was a man of more than ordinary powers of mind. Fond of historical research, he collected a large amount of matter pertaining to the his- tory of the Baptist denomination in this country, which was subsequently very serviceable to the Baptist historian, Rev. Isaac Backus. He delivered at Newport, March 24, 1738, which was the anniversary of the day when a century before the deed of Rhode Island was obtained from the Narra- gansett Indians, a discourse on the history of the colony during the preceding hundred years. This discourse has been found to be invaluable to all writers of Rhode Island history, and has been republished by the Rhode Island His- torical Society, of whose collections it forms vol. iv. It was edited with notes by Rev. Romeo Elton, D.D. Mr. Callender died in Newport, January 26, 1748, leaving a wife and several children. He was married, February 15, 1730, to Elizabeth Hardin, of Swansey, Massachusetts, by whom he had six children : Elizabeth, Mary, John, Elias, Sarah, and Josias. His daughter Mary, who was born in Newport, December 12, 1731, was a distinguished preacher of the Society of Friends. Her connection with that so- cicty took place in 1762, and she became a preacher in the thirty-seventh year of her age. She was married in Provi- dence, November 11, 1778, to Joseph Mitchell, a worthy member of the Society of Friends, and died June 26, 1810. The following description of the personal appearance of Mr. Callender has come down to us from those early times. He was about the middle size, graceful, and well propor- tioned. His complexion was fair, his features were regu- lar, his forehead was high and prominent, and in his coun- tenance there was an admirable mixture of gravity and sweetness. His eyes were of a dark blue, and said to be remarkable for their intelligence and brilliancy.

TYRAULT, DANIEL, a descendant of Pierre Ayrault, M.D., a native of Angers, in France. We find the name of Peter or Pierre Ayrault among the early Huguenot settlers of " Frenchtown," in that part of what was once Narragansett, now East Greenwich. He removed to Newport, it is supposed, not far from the year 1711 or 1712, although his name is found several years earlier than this among the petitioners who

asked for the kind offices of the Earl of Bellamont, in aid- ing them to obtain a minister for Trinity Church in New- port. Daniel, the only son of Dr. Ayrault, was born about the year 1676, and settled in Newport, where he married, May 9, 1703, Mary Robineau. He died June 25, 1764. Hc was twice married, his first wife, Mary, dying January 5, 1729. His second wife was Rebecca, widow of Edward Neargrass. A family of twelve children was the issue of this marriage. Among them we find Mary, who married James Cranston ; Daniel, who married a Brenton ; Samuel, described on his tombstone as a merchant ; and Judith, who married Joseph Tillinghast. His granddaughter, Franees, married in 1767 Edward Wanton, son of Governor Gideon Wanton. Another descendant, Mary, married in 1754 Benjamin Mason, whose son Benjamin married Margaret Champlin. George C. Mason, Esq., of Newport, is their grandson.

LARKE, REV. JOSHUA, second son of Thomas Clarke, was born in Westerly, in 1717, and was un- usually well educated for his times. He was chosen nu a deacon of the Sabbatarian Church, August 24, 1756, and ordained an elder in that body in May, 1768. He was a participant in the colonial wars, and nobly stood by his country in the Revolution. In 1773 he succeeded Rev. Thomas Hiscox in the pastoratc of the church. For a number of years he was a member of the legislature of the State, and was one of the first trustees of Brown Uni- versity. He was a man of marked ability, great devotion, and was justly held in high esteem. Three hundred and ninety-five were added to the church during his ministry. He died, March 8, 1793, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

REST, BENJAMIN, LL.D., son of John West, was born in Rehoboth, Mass., in Mareh, 1730. His early youth, which was spent on his father's farm, was marked with but few opportunities for obtain- ing an education. Three months covered the whole period of his school life. He developed, however, re- markable talents, especially in the department of mathe- matics, and early showed that he was forming original and independent habits of thinking. His friends in Bristol, whither his father had removed, Messrs. Usher, Burt, and Parsons, loaned him books, and he learned navigation from Captain Woodbury, of the same place, who taught him the art without any expense of tuition. He found, also, some books in the line of his taste which had been brought to Newport by Bishop Berkeley. In 1753 he married Eliza- beth, daughter of Mr. Benjamin Smith, of Bristol, and soon after took up his residence in Providence, where he opened a school. He taught for a few years, but not find- ing the business very profitable he opened a store for the sale of drygoods, connecting with this business that of a

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bookseller. The Revolutionary War broke up his estab- lishment, and he engaged in the manufacture of clothes for the soldiers of the army, and continued in this occupa- tion during the war. After the struggle was ended he returned to his former employment of teaching until 1786, when he was chosen Professor of Mathematics and As- tronomy in Rhode Island College, now Brown University. Many years before this he had appeared before the public in what some persons might regard as a humble capacity, the maker of almanacs. His first almanac was published in 1763, by Mr. Goddard, the father of the late Professor William Goddard, who had then just erected the first print- ing press in Providence. He continued to make almanacs calculated for the meridian of Providence till about the year 1793. He also prepared almanacs fitted to the me- ridian of Halifax, which, with the exception of the inter- val covered by the period of the Revolutionary War, were issued until 1812. His taste for astronomical studies was of the most decided character, and brought him into rela- tions of intimate friendship with some of the ablest philos- ophers and scientific men of his time. On the 3d of June, 1769, occurred the transit of Venus. Judge Staples in his Annals of Providence thus alludes to the interesting event : " In prospect of its near approach, all the necessary instru- ments were obtained. No expense was spared in procur- ing them, or in making the necessary arrangements. Dr. West states, in an account of the proceedings which he afterwards published, that Mr. Brown" (Professor Joseph Brown) " expended more than £100 sterling in making these preparations. A temporary observatory was erected in the street, since then, and from this circumstance, called Tran- sit Street, about one hundred feet east of Benefit Street. Here, on the morning of the, 3d of June, were collected not only the gentlemen before named" (the gentlemen re- ferred to were Benjamin West, Joseph Brown, Stephen Hopkins, Moses Brown, Jabez Bowen, Joseph Nash, and John Borrough), " but many others; some attracted by curiosity merely, and some by their love of science. The day proved calm and serene. Not a cloud intervened to obstruct their observation, but every circumstance contrib- uted to facilitate it. The account published by Dr. West bore ample testimony to his science as an astronomer. Compared with other observations, even with those made under the patronage of crowned heads in Europe, it main- tains a high place for its accuracy." The result of this observation of the transit of Venus was to make the latitude of Providence 41º 50' 41'/ and the longitude 71º 16' west of Greenwich. In July, 1770, Dr. West made observations on a comet which appeared at that time. His reputation as a man of science was now established, and Rhode Island College and Harvard College conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts in 1770, and Dartmouth College did the same in 1782. He was elected, January 31, 1781, a mem- ber of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. As has already been intimated, he was chosen Professor in

Rhode Island College in 1786. He did not, however, enter upon his duties till 1788. The year previous, 1787, he spent in Philadelphia as Professor of Mathematics in the Protestant Episcopal Academy in that place, and en- joyed the friendship of the distinguished Rittenhouse and Benjamin Franklin. He entered upon his duties as Pro- fessor in Rhode Island College in 1788, with the meagre salary at the outset of three hundred and seventy-five dol- lars a year, and was in office until 1798. The College conferred on him that year the degree of Doctor of Laws. After his retirement from his college duties, he opened a school for navigation in his own house. " This employ- ment," we are told, " proved more lucrative than his pro- fessorship; while at the same time he had the honor of bestowing upon his country some of its ablest navigators and seamen." In 1802 he was appointed under Jefferson's administration postmaster of Providence, in place of Wil- liam Wilkinson, and held the office eleven years, i. e., until his death, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law, Ga- briel Allen, who also held it until his death in 1824. Dr. West died August 26, 1813. ITis wife died in 1810. He had eight children, four of whom survived the death of their father. " Thus ended the life and services of this mathematician; a man who, had he received patronage proportioned to his merits, would perhaps have rivalled the greatest of his age; but charged with a numerous fam- ily, and doomed by his devotion to science to struggle through life against the tide of fortune, he retired from the world with nothing but the applause of mankind for his labors."

SARDINER, SYLVESTER, M.D., fourth son of Wil- liam and Abigail (Remington) Gardiner, was born in South Kingstown, in 1717. His health in early life was feeble, and there was but little reason to sup- pose he would be able to follow the business of his father, who was a farmer. At the suggestion of his brother- in-law, Rev. Dr. McSparran, he was sent to Boston, where he was placed under the charge of competent instructors, who taught him the rudiments of knowledge, and subse- quently he studied medicine, spending eight years in Eng- land and France, where he availed himself of every facility to perfect himself in his chosen profession. He returned to his native country an accomplished physician and sur- geon, and commenced practice in Boston. He is said to have been among the most distinguished of his profession in the day in which he lived. By his professional success, and by the means of a large establishment for the importa- tion and sale of drugs, he accumulated an immense estate, and purchased large tracts of land in Maine. His sympa- thies were with the Tory party in the Revolutionary War. When the British evacuated Boston he went to Nova Scotia and finally to England. His large estate, including 100,000 acres in Maine, was confiscated and sold. Soon after the

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close of the war, Dr. Gardiner returned to this country and settled in Newport, where he practiced his profession until his decease, which occurred August 14, 1786. He was a warm friend of the Episcopal Church. To the church which was established in Gardiner, Maine, a place, we be- lieve, named in honor of him, he gave ten acres of land for a glebe, and twenty-eight pounds sterling for the salary of the minister forever. The income thus perpetually secured to the parish has enabled them to sustain the church in that city for more than a century. Of this church Bishop Bur- gess, a Rhode Islander, was the rector for many years. Dr. Gardiner was married three times, his first wife being Anne, daughter of Dr. Gibbons, of Boston. They had six children : (1) John; (2) William, who had no issue; (3) Anne, who was the wife of John Brown, afterwards cre- ated Marquis of Sligo : their first son married a daughter of Lord Howe; (4) Hannah, married Robert IIallowell, from whom the town of Hallowell, Maine, takes its name. They had but one son, Robert Hallowell, who changed his name to Robert Hallowell Gardiner: he married Emma Tudor; (5) Rebecca, who married Philip Duma- risque : they had four children; (6) Abigail, who mar- ried Oliver Whipple, of Cumberland, and subsequently a lawyer in Portsmouth, New Hampshire: they had three children, one of whom, Hannah, became the wife of Fred- eric Allen, Esq., a lawyer of distinction in Gardiner, Maine. The second wife of Dr. Gardiner was Miss Eppes, of Salem, Massachusetts ; and his third wife was Catharine Gold- thwait.

G CSPARRAN, REV. JAMES, D.D., an early and eminent Episcopal divine of Rhode Island, graduated at the University of Glasgow, in 1709, and received ordination as a priest by the Bishop of London, September 25, 1720. Prior to his becoming an Episcopalian he was a Presbyterian, and was unfortunate in his negotiations with the people of Bristol, Rhode Island. Appointed a missionary of the celebrated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, he returned to this country in the spring of 1721, and had for his field the Narragansett country. At first his parish embraced Bristol, Freetown, Swansey, and Little Compton, He was married to Hannah Gardiner, of Boston Neck, May 22, 1722. Choosing his residence in South Kingstown, the centre of his field of labor, he presided in a special manner over the once famous body known as the Tower Hill Church, also called St. Paul's. The first church edifice was built here in 1707, under the missionary efforts of Rev. James Honyman, of Newport, then a mis- sionary of the Propagation Society. In 1725 Dr. McSpar- ran had an important agency in the establishment of an Episcopal Church (St. James) in New London, Connecti- cut, and is supposed to be the first person who officiated there according to the forms of the Church of England.

Ile was also largely instrumental, in connection with Rev. Mr. Honyman, and the celebrated layman, Gabriel Bernon (the IIugucnot), in establishing St. John's Church, in Prov- idence, and the erection of their house in 1722. In 1731 the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. He visited England in 1736 and returned in 1737. In 1752 he wrote his remarkable work entitled, America Dissected, in which he took a gloomy view of the country. The work contains much valuable historical information, and some of liis pictures of old Narragansett life have great worth. He made a second visit to England in 1754, and returned in 1756. His wife died in England, June 24, 1755, and was buried in West- minster. His health now rapidly failed, and he died in South Kingstown, December 1, 1757," having been minister of St. Paul's (Tower Hill), in Narragansett, thirty-seven years," " the most able divine that was ever sent over to this country by the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- pel." His remains were buried beneath the communion table of the church. Portraits of Doctor and Mrs. McSpar- ran were exccuted by the famous painter, John Smibert, of Italy, who visited this country with Bishop Berkeley.

NOW, REV. JOSEPH, the first pastor of what is now the Beneficent Congregational Church, in Provi- dence, was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, April 6, 1715. He learned the trade of a carpenter, at which he worked in Providence. During the min- istry of Rev. John Cotton, pastor of the First Congrega- tional (now Unitarian) Society, a part of his church and congregation becoming dissatisfied with the character of his preaching, which they did not regard as orthodox, sepa- rated from his pastoral charge, the final act of secession taking place March 7, 1743. Mr. Snow was at the time deacon of the church. The seceders constituted a large part, if not a majority, of Mr. Cotton's church. They held their religious services on the west side of the river, their meetings being the first that were statedly attended and kept up in that section of the town. Judge Staples quotes from the records of the First Church the following, which indi- cates the spirit of the church from which these Christian people had seceded : " They set up a separate meeting, where they attended to the exhortations of a lay brother who had been brought up in the business of house-carpen- tering." And again : "Every method for healing the un- easiness that had arose proved fruitless and vain ; enthusi- asm raged with the utmost impctuosity. These held sepa- rate meetings at a private house, where they were enter- tained on the Lord's day with loud and vociferous decla- mation on the downfall of Babylon, and on the necessity of coming out and being separate, not touching the unclean thing, and such like exhortations were liberally held out." The records on the other side might present a different pic-

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ture. Joseph Snow, Jr., was the carpenter " lay brother" referred to. So acceptable were his services, that he was urged by his brethren to consent to be ordained as pastor of the seceding flock. The service of ordination took place February 12, 1747. Having decided to build a house of worship, the tradition is that their minister turned his trade to good account, and led " some of his principal members into the woods, and there cut down and hewed timber for that purpose." The lot of land on which the mecting-house was erected was deeded to the society by Daniel Abbott, May 29, 1744, two months after the Separatists had been suspended from Mr. Cotton's church. The edifice built on this lot, the same now occupied by the Beneficent Church, was built of wood, and originally measured thirty-six by forty feet. It was enlarged three times. At length it was removed, to make place, in 1808, for the present house. Mr. Snow continued to act as pastor of the church until 1793. It may be noticed in passing that in 1783, after nearly forty years, the church which had suspended so large a number of its members in 1744, rescinded the act of suspension on account of the " fair character and exemplary lives" of those suspended. The proposition by members of his church and society to settle Rev. James Wilson as colleague pastor, was so unsatisfactory to Mr. Snow and a large number of his friends, that he resigned his pastorate in October, 1793. Meetings were held for a time in his house by those who sympathized with him. At length the wooden structure known as " The Old Tin Top," on the corner of Pine and Richmond Streets, was erected and dedicated August 16, 1795. Of the church which worshipped in this meeting- house, Mr. Snow was the pastor until his death, which oc- curred April 10, 1803, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, and the fifty-eighth of his ministry. His funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Gano, pastor of the First Baptist Church, who bestowed the highest praise on his departed friend. " Few men," says Judge Staples, "receive, and fewer deserve, such a character," as Dr. Gano gave to his brother in the ministry.

acnenão JEKE, ROBERT, the artist, was of the second genera- . tion of a Dutch family that in the early coloniza- tion of Long Island, New York, settled at the head of Oyster Bay. He was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in the early part of the last century. His father being a zealous Quaker, was highly displeased that Robert should be a Baptist, and followed him to the water " and forbade the administering of the rite," on penalty of disinheriting him. This opposition of the father induced Robert to embark in voyages abroad, in one of which, dur- ing a time of war, he was made a prisoner and conveyed to Spain. While there in prison he obtained paints and brushes, and whiled away his prison hours in painting rude sketches, that finally sold for enough to defray his expenses

on his home passage. Returning to Newport, he married an estimable lady, of English parentage. Though she was a Quakeress, he ever remained firm in the faith and prac- tice of Baptist principles. It is said that he would accom- pany his wife to the door of her meeting-house, and there leaving her, pass on to his own. He continued his career as an artist in Newport for about a quarter of a century, having but little opportunity to study his art from others, on account of the imperfect condition of art culture in the country at that time. In 1746 he visited Philadelphia, where lie painted several portraits that won great praise, and established his reputation as one of the celebrated artists of his timc. The portrait of the wife of Governor Wanton, executed by him, is in the Redwood Library, at Newport, a fine evidence of his skill. Portraits of himself and wife are in the possession of the Bullock family in Provi- dence, but these are incomplete. He died in Bermuda, about forty-five years of age, leaving three sons and two daughters. His son John became a shipmaster, and was finally lost, with all on board, in the English Channel. Charles, another son, became a physician and druggist, and was so benevolent as to be called " Rhode Island's Philan- thropist." He died in 1822, in the seventy-second year of his age.

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 23

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