The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 52

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

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SURFEE, HON. JOB, son of Hon. Thomas and Mary (Louden) Durfee, was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, September 20, 1790. His father, of Rhode Island ancestry, was a soldier in the Revolution, engaged in the battle of Quaker Hill, afterwards studied law and became Chief Justice of the Court of Com-

mon Pleas. His mother was a devoted Christian woman. The family residence was located near Tiverton Heights, overlooking some of the fairest portions of Narragansett Bay. The subject of this sketch was well educated in his rural home and in the public schools of his time, being an cager and thoughtful reader of books. He fitted for col- lege in Bristol, Rhode Island, and in 1809 entered Brown University, then under Dr. Asa Messer, and graduated with high honor in the class of 1813, with Hon. Zachariah Allen, LL.D., Rev. Romeo Elton, D.D., Rev. Joel Hawes, D.D., Rev. Enoch Pond, D.D., and Rev. Thomas Shep- ard, D.D. In the same year he delivered a Fourth of July Oration. He early developed rare poetic talent, and the year after his graduation delivered a poem-" The Vision of Petrarch,"-before the United Brothers Society of the University. He pursued the study of law with his honored father. In 1816 he was elected by his native town a Rep- resentative in the General Assembly, which office he held by re-election for four years, and was distinguished as a sound and ready debater. In 1820 he was elected by the State a Representative to Congress, and served till 1825, and stood conspicuous in the national councils. In 1826 he was returned to the General Assembly, and in October, 1827, was chosen Speaker of the House, a position which he also ably filled in 1828, and until May, 1829, after which he refused a re-election to the General Assembly. In 1833 he was elected Associate Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, and in June, 1835, was chosen to the seat of Chief Justice, a position which he held with pecu- liar honor to himself and to the State through the trying period of the " Dorr Rebellion," and until his death. The first edition of his poem, " What Cheer," was brought out in 1832. The work had an enthusiastic reception in Eng- land, winning golden opinions from the critics, even from John Foster in the famous Eclectic Review. In January, 1836, he delivered before the Rhode Island Historical Society, two marked lectures on Aboriginal History. A year or two later he delivered, before the Massa- chusetts Historical Society, a lecture on the "Idea of the Supernatural among the Aborigines." His memor- able charge on Treason, printed and widely circulated, was delivered to the Grand Jury during the excitement occasioned by the " Dorr War." He delivered an elo- quent oration on the Progress of Ideas-or Human Prog- ress, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Brown Uni- versity, in 1843. His largest and most labored prose work, Panidea, first appeared in 1846, under the pseudonyme of Theoptes. The work was profoundly metaphysical and evinced the great intellectual power of the author, yet it failed to attract wide attention. The winter preceding his death he delivered an able discourse on the Rhode Island Idea of Government. A life so full of activity and usefulness justly won a noble and enduring niche in Rhode Island history. The pure and solid character of the student, judge, and author, was manifest in all his deeds, and

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stands conspicuous in his writings. He married, in the autumn of 1820, Judith Borden, daughter of Simeon Bor- den, and had seven children, two sons and five daughters. The younger son died February 23, 1858, in the twenty- ninth year of his age. The eldest son, Hon. Thomas Dur- fee, is the present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island. Judge Durfee died July 26, 1847, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He requested that his tomb- stone should be engraved with the Rhode Island Coat of Arms, and the words, " His trust was and is in God."

TEMPO FRANCIS, HON. JOHN BROWN, Governor of Rhode Island from 1833 to 1838, son of John and Abby (Brown) Francis, was born in Philadelphia, May 31, 1791. The place of his parents' residence was Providence, to which they removed soon after his birth. When he was five years of age his father died, and he was made the subject of the fostering care of his grand- father on his mother's side, John Brown, the leading mer- chant of the town. He prepared for college at the Uni- versity Grammar School, and graduated at Brown University in the class of 1808. After leaving college he spent some time in the house of Messrs. Brown & Ives, and at a later period attended the lectures of the law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, rather for the purposes of mental culture in certain departments of knowledge and intellectual disci- pline, than for entrance upon the onerous duties of pro- fessional life. After completing his term of study at the law school he devoted several years to the management of the large estate bequeathed to him by his grandfather, spending a part of his time among his paternal relatives in Philadelphia. Upon the decease of his mother he took up his residence at Spring Green, Warwick, the country-seat of his family. Very soon he was called to represent the town of Warwick in the General Assembly and was an- nually chosen to fill that position from 1821 to 1829. He was chosen a member of the State Senate in 1831. In 1833 he was elected Governor of Rhode Island, and was annually re-elected to this office until 1838, when the party opposed to him came into power. For the next few years he took but little active interest in politics. During the troubles which disturbed the State in 1842 he was chosen a member of the Senate of Rhode Island, and represented in that body the " Law and Order" party. A vacancy having occurred in the Senate of the United States in con- sequence of the resignation of Hon. William Sprague, he was chosen to fill it in 1844, and was in Congress until the session closed in March, 1845. Having completed his term of service in Congress he was again elected to the State Senate, and annually re-elected until 1856, when he retired from political life. For twenty-nine years, from 1828 to 1857, he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Brown University, and from 1841 to 1854, a period of thirteen

years, he held the office of Chancellor. He identified him- self warmly with the interests of popular education in the State, and was the friend of all good causes which in any way promoted the moral and intellectual elevation of his fellow-citizens. Governor Francis was twice married; the first time to Anne Carter, only daughter of Hon. Nicholas Brown, in 1822. She died in 1828, leaving two daughters, of whom one only is now living, Mrs. Marshall Woods, of Providence. His second marriage was with his cousin, the daughter of Thomas Willing Francis, of Philadelphia, in 1832. She with one son and two daughters survive her husband. Governor Francis died at Spring Green, War- wick, August 9, 1864. He was one of Rhode Island's most distinguished and useful citizens, " regarded by the people among whom he always lived with a mingled af- fection and respect which they have accorded to no other public man of his time."

NOWLES, PROFESSOR JAMES DAVIS, second son of Edward and Amey (Peck) Knowles, was born in Providence, in July, 1798. His father was a respectable mechanic, and both his parents were persons of exemplary character. His father great- ly desired that his son should enjoy the advantages of a . collegiate education, but his death prevented the fulfilment of this wish. At the age of about twelve, the subject of this sketch was placed in the printing-office of John Carter, a gentleman of high repute in Providence, and at that time editor of the Providence Gazette. In this position he not only became thorough master of his trade, but he learned, with rare facility, the use of his pen. While serving his apprenticeship he prepared many articles, both- in prose and poetry, for the newspapers of the day. Some of these articles, copied by his brother from his manuscripts that the authorship of them might not be detected, were published in the Gazette, and we are told that he enjoyed, in secret, the satisfaction of hearing the first-fruits of author- ship warmly commended by competent judges, and by them ascribed to some of the practiced writers of the day. He remained in the office of the Gazette a short time after the decease of Mr. Carter, and was a frequent contributor to its columns. When he was twenty years of age, he was em- ployed as foreman in the printing-office of the Rhode Island American, and on reaching the age of twenty-one, July, 1819, became co-editor of that paper. Here the productions of his ready pen found a place, and commanded the respect and often the admiration of the patrons of that paper. Such mastery had he over his thoughts, and so well-trained had he become in expressing them that he sometimes gave form to them without the intervention of pen, ink, or paper. "On one occasion," says Profesosr Goddard, " I stood by his side and saw him arrange his ideas in the composing- stick with as much rapidity as he could select the types and adjust them. The article thus composed was so distin-

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guished for vigor of thought and beauty of expression that it was transcribed into the columns of the National Gazette, then cdited by our celebrated countryman, Robert Walsh, Esq." Soon after he took the editorial post, which he so well filled, he became a Christian, and joined the First Baptist Church, in Providence, then under the pastoral charge of Rev. Dr. Gano. The great change through which he had passed altered all his plans, and he decided to prepare for the Christian ministry. Ile went to Phila- delphia and became connected with the Baptist Seminary under the care of Rev. Dr. Staughton and Professor Chace. On the removal of the seminary to Washington, where it was attached to the then new college, known as Colum- bian College, Mr. Knowles decided to take a full course of collegiate study. Here he not only took the highest rank as a scholar, in his class, but he edited at the time the Columbian Star, a weekly religious paper, with an ability which gave it an excellent reputation in the periodical lit- erature of the day. He graduated with the valedictory honors, in December, 1824, and at once was appointed one of the tutors of the College. The duties of his office he discharged with eminent success until the summer of 1825. In the autumn of this year he was called, by a unanimous vote, to succeed Rev. Dr. Baldwin as pastor of the Second Baptist Church, in Boston. For seven years he bore the burdens and cares which fall to the lot of a. minister of a large city congregation. His vigorous con- stitution at length yielded to the pressure which was laid on him, and in 1832 he felt compelled to resign, and to accept the chair of Professor of Pastoral Duties and Sacred Rhetoric in the Newton Theological Institution. Amid the quiet and congenial pursuits of this new position his health and strength rallied, and his old vigor of body and mind returned. Added to his duties as professor were those which devolved on him for more than two years as the editor of the Christian Review, for which office his previous experience had given him rare qualifications. Pro- fessor Knowles was favorably known to the public. In 1829 he published his Memoirs of Mrs. Ann H. Judson, one of the most popular religious biographies ever issued from the press in this country. After he became a Professor at Newton he published his Memoirs of Roger Williams. He dedicated this work to the citizens of his native State, in whose history and institutions he never ceased to take an in- terest. He also published several addresses, sermons, and re- view articles. He had the poet's gift, and wrote many fugi- tive pieces, which " would not dishonor the most gifted of the living bards of England." Believing that the immortal Elegy of Gray was sadly deficient in its religious tone, he wrote nine stanzas which he thought might well follow the stanza beginning " From the madd'ning crowd's igno- ble strife." These lines breathe the sweetest and loftiest spirit of true devotion. They may be found in Professor Goddard's obituary notice of Professor Knowles, in Vol. I., p. 310, of Writings of William G. Goddard. His death,

which occurred at Newton, May 9, 1838, was caused by small-pox, which disease, it is supposed, he had contracted in New York a few days before his decease. He was buried, at midnight, in a beautiful, quiet spot on the grounds of the Newton Institution, and a suitable monument marks the place where his mortal remains were laid away. Pro- fessor Knowles was married, January II, 1826, to Susan Langley, daughter of Joshua HI. Langley, Esq., of Provi- dence, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. It may be safely said that Rhode Island has produced few men of more symmetrical character or riper scholarship than James Davis Knowles.

ANTHONY, HEZEKIAH, son of David and Submit (Wheeler) Anthony, was born at Somerset, Mas- sachusetts, April 3, 1788. His father was a farmer, with a family of ten children. Mr. An- thony was educated in the public schools of Som- 0 erset, and at an early age became clerk in a factory store at Dighton, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1807, when he removed to Providence. Here he was at first clerk for John Helen, in a crockery store on Weybosset Street. He soon went into business for himself as a whole- sale grocer, in Whitman's Block, in the same street, after- ward added the sale of cotton and manufacturers' supplies, and for many years engaged exclusively in cotton broker- age. For forty-eight years he remained in the same build- ing in which he commenced business. He was noted for honesty, punctuality, good judgment, and systematic habits. Notwithstanding his close application to business, he de- voted much time to the advancement of the general in- terests of the community. For several years he was a member of the town council of Providence, and after the town became a city he served as Councilman, from the Fifth Ward, from 1832 to 1835; and as Alderman from 1835 to 1838. He also served as Mayor, pro tempore. He was one of the organizers of the Union Bank, in 1814, and was elected a director in 1824, in which capacity he served until 1876, when he declined a re-election. During this long period he was seldom absent from the Board mectings. He was also a charter-member of the People's Savings Bank, of which he was chosen a director in 1824, a member of the Standing Committee in 1851, and Vice President in 1855, all of which positions he resigned in 1874. In politics Mr. Anthony has always heen a Demo- crat. Since June 21, 1818, he has been an active member of the Chestnut Street Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1810 he married Sally Bowers, of Dighton, Massachusetts, who died in 1860. They had eleven children, six sons and five daughters, three of whom are living, Mrs. Sarah Ann Cook, of Providence, Mary B. A., widow of the late Colonel William Viall, of Providence, and Jane A., widow of the late Rev. James H. Eames, D.D., of Concord, New Hampshire.

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EXTER, NATHANIEL GREGORY BALCH, was born in the town of Grafton, Massachusetts, June 25, 1788. He was a descendant of Gregory Dexter, an asso- ciate of Roger Williams, and a man of vigorous in- tellect. Gregory Dexter was several times elected to public office, and in the discharge of his official duties exhibited sagacity and conscientiousness. Many of his descendants are to be found in Rhode Island, and in suc- cessive generations six have borne the name of Gregory. The subject of this sketch spent the first ten years of his life in his native town. In 1797 his parents removed to the village of Pawtucket, North Providence, Rhode Island, and he followed them two years thereafter. Samuel Slater had already started here the business of spinning cotton by water, and his little mill, on what is at present known as Mill Street, afforded employment for a few operatives. Young Dexter soon found employment in that mill, and enjoyed the privilege, of which he was wont to boast, of being one of the numberof lads who constituted the Sunday- school organized by Mr. Slater, in the fall of 1799. The school was conducted on the same principle of that carried on by Raikes, and is supposed to be the first Sabbath- school organized in the State. As Captain Dexter used to say in his old age, " The school consisted of seven boys, and their class-books and library were two Testaments and five Webster's Spelling Books." Two years afterward Mr. Slater hired young Dexter for a year or two to teach a Sunday-school for the instruction of the children of his mill. The firm by which young Dexter was employed bore the style of Almy, Brown & Slater, and he remained in their service about thirty years. In 1820 he began to make knitting cotton on a small scale on his own account, and in 1830 he left the above-named firm and engaged more largely in the business. By skill and integrity he won an enviable reputation, and his goods were the standard of excellence in this country. Dexter knitting cottons are in equal demand beyond the Mississippi as in the Eastern States. Captain Dexter celebrated his golden wedding in November, 1858, and the occasion was notable from the circumstance that the clergyman who officiated at the wedding, and the printer who set up the marriage notice were present, and both of them had also celebrated their golden weddings the same year. Captain Dexter died April 8, 1866, in his seventy-ninth year. He was noted for his cheerful, genial spirit, his love for children, his humane disposition, and strict abstinence from strong drink.

TAFFORD, RUFUS JUDSON, manufacturer, son of Stukley and Dezoy Stafford, was born in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, December 6, 1818. Losing his father at an early age, he was under the necessity of looking to his own maintenance and the welfare of his needy relatives, acquiring an education as best he could in the schools and by reading. He became an apprentice

boy in a cotton-factory, where his natural talents, good habits, industry, and faithfulness secured him advance- ment. After completing the work of the day he devoted the evenings to such scientific and general reading and study as qualified him to hold new positions. He sub- sequently went to Utica, New York, and directed putting into working order the Utica Steam Cotton Mills, the first establishment of the kind in that region. In 1852 he set- tled in Central Falls, Lincoln, Rhode Island, which was ever afterward his home. Purchasing a controlling in- terest in the old Brick Mill, built in 1825, but the largest in the place, in connection with H. B. Wood, he put it in order, and commenced the manufacture of cotton cloth. In 1860 additions were made to the mill, and in 1862 he changed machinery and engaged in the manufacture of spool cotton. The discerning, industrious, energetic man was apparent in all his work. As his business became large and prosperous it was transformed into a joint-stock association, and incorporated, a short time prior to his death, under the name of the Stafford Manufacturing Com- pany, now one of the best-known and most successful companies in Rhode Island. Being an ingenious man and a machinist, he built the Pawtucket Gas-Works in 1854. He also wove the first hair-cloth made in America by power-looms, and devised important improvements in hair-cloth manufacture, so that now the best cloth of this kind in the world is made in this country. Mr. Stafford was a man of fine personal appearance, and noted for his uprightness, intelligence, kindness, and benevolence. All looked upon him as a safe adviser and warm friend. He was remarkably efficient by his pecuniary aid in the Civil War in support of the Union. Just before his death he became an earnest Christian. He was an attendant at the First Baptist Church in Pawtucket, where his wife was a member. He was twice married. His first wife was Catharine Wheelock, daughter of Simeon Wheelock, of Mendon, Massachusetts. They had four children, Kate J., Sarah L., Andrew A., and Louisa W. His second wife was Mrs. Milla Cole Taft, whose maiden name was Milla Cole Brown. Mr. Stafford died February 7, 1864, in the forty-sixth year of his age. He was a prince among our manufacturers, and deservedly ranks as a representa- tive man of the State.

HEELER, BENNETT H., the fourth son of Bennett and Zerviah (Field) Wheeler, was born in Provi- dence, August 18, 1788. The following memoir, from the Necrological Report published in the " Transactions of the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry," for 1864, was written by Judge Staples, author of the Annals of Provi- "dence. Mr. Wheeler was the survivor of six brothers and one sister. His father, generally spoken of as Major Wheeler, was a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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HIe left there soon after attaining the age of twenty- one years, and came to Providence, landing first at Bos- ton on the fourth day of July, 1776. IIe was deeply imbued with the principles of the Whigs of those days, and heartily united with them in their struggle for lib- erty. Major Wheeler was a printer. When he arrived in Providence there were two printing-offices in the place; at one, Mr. John Carter's, The Providence Gazette, the only newspaper in town, was published weekly ; the other, Mr. John McDougal's, was a job office, where he at once engaged to work. The first work he did was a reprint of Pope's Essay on Man, an edition of 750 copies. He staid but a few months, and went to Mr. Carter's office, which place he left December, 1778, and went to work for Mr. Solomon Southwick, in Attleborough, who had been driven from Newport on the occupation of Rhode Island by the British troops, in December, 1776. In March, 1779, Mr. Southwick and Mr. Wheeler removed to Provi- dence, and commenced publishing The American Journal and General Advertiser, in company, Mr. Wheeler retain- ing his interest in the paper until August, 1781. The paper was published until 1784. During this period he was a member of the United Train of Artillery, under Colonel Daniel Tillinghast, and says in his journal, " When the British troops landed on the main, from Rhode Island, and burned a part of Warren and Bristol, our corps got a few shots at them from our field pieces, when they quickly retreated." In January, 1784, Major Wheeler commenced publishing The United States Chronicle, political, com- mercial, and historical. The Chronicle was printed in the building that formerly stood at the corner of Westmin- ster and Exchange streets, and in which the Exchange Bank was afterwards located. Mr. Wheeler erected that building, and there carried on an extensive business as a printer, publisher, and bookseller. A finely preserved copy of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, with his imprint, is now held here a rare curiosity, as being probably its first reprint in this country. The Chronicle was continued until 1804, a weekly paper. It was conducted with great ability, and in its opposition to the paper money measures of 1786-7-8, which was decided, consistent, and effectual, great credit was justly awarded to it. In April, 1806, Major Wheeler closed his eventful life in Providence, after a short illness. The wife of Major Wheeler was Zerviah, second daughter of Deacon John Field, of Providence, who was a descend- ant of one of the early settlers of New England. The sub- ject of this sketch was the fourth son of this marriage. His parents intended to educate him for a physician, but events occurring changed this intent. He was at one time a scholar in what he afterwards called " Dicky Marvin's School." Richard Marvin, who is so irreverently alluded to, was by birth an Englishman. He was, in 1777, third lieutenant of the ship Warren, one of the vessels of the first fleet of the United States. When he entered the United States Navy cannot now be readily ascertained. He made

himself prominent in 1777 by his complaints to Congress against Commodore Hopkins, and was active in causing his removal. After the peace of 1783, Mr. Marvin opened a school on the west side of the river, in Providence, and gave instruction in Navigation, among other branches. IIe will be remembered by a few now living as a loud talker, whose opinions on politics and religion were at war with those of a large majority of the citizens. Mr. Wheeler could not have attended " Dicky Marvin's school" long, for in 1799 he was an apprentice in his father's printing- office, where he remained until 1804, when he went to Bos- ton, in Messrs. Manning & Loring's printing-office. In May, 1806, he removed to Portland (then in the district of Maine), and obtained work as a journeyman while yet in his eighteenth year. He left Portland in December, 1806, from a desire to visit his relatives, and because he had re- ceived letters from Mr. Josiah Jones in relation to the pur- chase and publication of The Providence Phenix. His diary gives very minute particulars of his journey to Providence. The Providence Phenix office at this time belonged to Mr. William Olney. This paper was started in May, 1803, by Messrs. Theodore A. Foster and William Dunham in aid of the election of Mr. Jefferson as President of the United States. It subsequently passed into the hands of Mr. Olney. During the first week in January, 1807, Mr. Wheeler, in company with Mr. Josiah Jones, hired the printing-office of Mr. Olney. The following week Mr. Olney died. Messrs. Jones & Wheeler continued the lessees of the establishment until March, 1809, when they pur- chased the same of the representatives of Mr. Olney. They continued the weekly newspaper under the same name, until 1816, when the name was changed to that of The Providence Patriot and Columbian Phenix. In 1819 Barzillai Cranston became interested in the establishment, and from January of that year the paper was published semi-weekly. Mr. Cranston's connection with the paper lasted only one year. In 1823 Mr. Wheeler disposed of his interest in the concern to Mr. Eaton W. Maxcy, after which he had no further connection with the publication of the Patriot. The political character of the paper re- mained unchanged during the ownership of Mr. Wheeler. In May, 1818, Mr. Wheeler received the appointment of Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Providence. This office he declined to accept, although it was then the most lucrative office in the State. In 1819 he was elected a Public Notary for the County of Provi- dence, and a Justice of the Peace for Providence. In 1820 he was appointed Adjutant-General of the Militia of the State. He also received from the electors of President and Vice-President, in the same year, the appointment of Messenger to carry their votes to Washington. In May, 1824, President Monroe appointed Mr. Wheeler Postmaster of Providence, after the death of Mr. Gabriel Allen, which office he held until removed, in 1830, by President Jack- son, to make room for a political partisan. This was the

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 52

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