The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 58

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

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: Anthony B. Arnold

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of the Beneficent Congregational Church of Providence, of which the Rev. James Wilson was then pastor, and is still a member of that denomination. He has always been a ready contributor to all Christian effort, both in means and personal labor, and an earnest assistant in most of the moral and benevolent efforts of the day. He was de- cidedly opposed to slavery from early life, and although fourteen years of his business life were spent in the Southern States, he never consented to own a slave. From his youth he has been an earnest and consistent advocate of temper- ance principles, having throughout his life totally abstained from the use of intoxicating drinks, as a beverage, even including cider, and having always refused to let any build- ings for the sale of intoxicating liquors, nor has he used tobacco in any form. For many years he was President of both State and city temperance societies, and was one of the most zealous and efficient friends of the cause at a time when their efforts were most successful. He has also been an active worker in Sunday-schools for more than fifty years, having been engaged much of that time as teacher of im- portant classes of both young and aged persons. For many years he had charge of an adult female class of more than one hundred members, and was for a long time President of the Sunday-school Teachers' Association, an institution doing great moral and religious good. He has ever taken an active interest in missionary societies, tract, Bible, and peace societies, and institutions for the welfare of the poor and the protection of destitute children. He was one of the founders of the Fuel Society of Providence, and wrote its first constitution. He is the author of a volume of poems, of 220 pages, chiefly the result of his Sabbath-school teaching, having for a long time written a poem every week, pertaining to the subject of the lesson, to be read before his class. The edition was limited to two hundred, and was issued solely for the pleasure of his particular friends, by whom it was received with much approbation. He has also been an occasional contributor to the press. Mr. Arnold was married, at the age of twenty-five, to Miss Abby Potter Fuller, only child of Joseph and Lucy Fuller, whose affectionate companionship he enjoyed for thirty- eight years, and whose rare virtues were a subject of admi- ration with all who knew her. She was a useful member of society, and highly esteemed for her labors in the church, of which she was a member for twenty years. Although more than twenty-seven years have passed since they were separated by her death, he has never felt that his loss could be repaired. They had no children, but Mr. Arnold's family at different times has embraced, beside himself and wife, his wife's father and mother, his father, his adopted daughter and her husband, Edwin B. Day, all of whom, except Mrs. Day, who is still living, died while members of his family. He has also provided for the education and training of six children of other parents, three males and three females, who have grown to manhood and womanhood as members of his family, the last of whom is Anthony B. Day, who

graduated at Amherst College in 1881, at the age of twenty- one. Mr. Arnold has not only contributed to the welfare and happiness of those who were the special objects of his benevolence, but his aid and sympathy have been extended to others of every class and condition in need of help and encouragement. He is a man of marked individuality and great force of character; firm in adherence to his convic- tions, and in the exercise of those sterner qualities essential to worldly success, yet uniformly courteous, and of a kindly, sympathetic nature. Although now in the ninety-first year of his age, his penmanship is remarkably beautiful, and he continues to give personal attention to the varied interests of his estate, and otherwise exhibits great mental and bodily vigor.

IMAN, GOVERNOR BYRON, eldest son of Jeremiah and Hannah (Luther) Diman, was born in Bristol, Rhode Island, August 5, 1795. In his youth he enjoyed the advantages of an excellent private school kept for many years by the late Bishop Griswold. Here, according to the testimony of one of his classmates, the venerable Bishop Smith, of Kentucky, he held the first place, his devotion to study creating a tie between teacher and pupil which was only dissolved by death. The literary tastes thus early formed were cherished and developed. Up to a late period in his life he was a diligent reader, and few men not belonging to the class of professed students possessed more varied and accurate information. He was well versed in English literature and general history, and especially at home in topographical and antiquarian lore. At an early age he entered the counting-house of Hon. James De Wolf, and continued in the most confidential relations with that gentleman until his death in 1837. He engaged in the whale fishery, which at one time was largely prosecuted at Bristol. In various other ways he was closely identified with the business interests of that town. He was at one time Treasurer, and afterward President of the Bristol Steam Mill; a Director of the Pokanoket Mill; and for many years President of the Bank of Bristol. In all his business relations he was actuated by the most generous and forbearing spirit. The distressed applied instinctively to him for aid, and seldom were they refused. Mr. Diman was early and actively engaged in politics. He was an enthusiastic Whig of the school of Henry Clay. For many years he was a member of the Legislature, and he was a delegate to the Harrisburg Convention which nominated General Harrison for the Presidency. During the exciting days of the Dorr War he was a member of the Governor's Council. His official duties, however, did not prevent his shouldering his gun and marching to Chepachet. When the new Constitution was adopted he was elected Lieutenant- Governor, and in 1846, at the disruption of the Law and Order party, he was elected Governor. No persuasion could induce him to hold the office longer than a year, and he

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was deaf to all solicitations to accept a higher position, even that of United States Senator. The only official connection that he retained with the State was as Commissioner of the indigent blind, deaf, and dumb. To the duties of this office he gave great attention. He issued the call for the first meeting held in Bristol for the organization of the Republican party, and he gave to the policy of President Lincoln a cordial and unhesitating support. He died of apoplexy, at his residence in Bristol, August 1, 1865. A fine portrait of him by Lincoln graces the chamber of the State House in Providence. Governor Diman was twice mar- ried ; first to Abby Alden Wight, daughter of Rev. Henry Wight, D.D., by whom he had four children, including J. L. and H. W. Diman, both of whom graduated at Brown University. His second wife was Elizabeth Ann Liscomb; by her he had one child, who survives him.

TWELL, HON. SAMUEL YOUNG, for many years a leading member of the Rhode Island bar, was born in Providence, June 24, 1796. His father, the descendant of an old and honorable English family, was a man of considerable means and cultivated literary tastes, and bestowed on his son superior educational advantages. At the age of twenty he gradu- ated from Brown University as the valedictorian of his class. His favorite studies were philosophy, the sciences, and general literature. After devoting a year to the study of medicine he entered the office of the Hon. John Whip- ple as a law student, and upon being admitted to the bar, at once entered upon a successful practice. In 1835 he was elected, without opposition, to the General Assembly, from the town of Glocester, and, two years later, chairman of the State Commission on Banking. The following year he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, which position he held until the close of the session of 1840. At the outset of the "Dorr Rebellion" he was in earnest sympathy with the side of the people. He com- bated as unconstitutional, however, a resort to arms, and correctly anticipated its disastrous results .. While acting as counsel for the defence in the trial of the alleged mur- derer of Amasa Sprague, his protracted labors, in addition to a cold, induced nervous prostration, which shortly after- wards resulted in his death, October 25, 1844. He was at this time in the zenith of his power and usefulness. According to the testimony of his colleagues he was the first jurist in the State. To his profound erudition was allied great oratorical powers, a ready epigrammatic wit, and a deep insight into human character and motives. His appearance and characteristics are thus described by a con- temporary : " His presence was grand, although he was not finely formed; neither was his head shaped as though with a chisel; but he was a great, strong, burly man, with a presence quite as powerful as that of Mr. Webster. He always dressed in black, and spoke with great dignity and

earnestness, and his personal habits were of the plainest and simplest character. His power of concentration of mind was wonderful. He lived at Chepachet, and he used to say that all the thinking in his business was done as he drove to town. He bestowed the most painstaking care and minute attention to details in the preparation of his cases, and rarely lost a case. His power over a jury was wonderful, and his eloquence was heightened by a voice of peculiar magnetic properties. He seemed to speak like a man who had sounded the lowest depths of human experience. As a presiding officer he discharged his duties with singular urbanity, impartiality, and good judgment, and with a lofty courtesy that never deserted him, even in the most heated debate." In his social and domestic rela- tions he was esteemed for his generous, kindly disposition, his liberal hospitality, and his unostentatious benevolence. He married, in his twenty-sixth year, the daughter of a prominent Providence merchant, the issue of the marriage being five children,-three sons and two daughters.

IMOND, GOVERNOR FRANCIS M., was born in Bristol, in 1796. When a young man he went to the island of Cuba, where he lived for several years. He afterwards represented the United States for some time as Consul at Port au Prince. For several years his residence was in New Orleans. He was subsequently United States' Consul at Vera Cruz, Mexico, in which po- sition he acquired such knowledge of the country and the government, that when war broke out between the two countries the information which he was able to communi- cate to the authorities at home was of great value. We are told "when the expedition against Vera Cruz was planned he was summoned to Washington, where his accurate memory quickly supplied the greatly needed chart of the Mexican harbor." In order that he might be an eye-wit- ness of the bombardment of the place, he sailed from Ha- vana in time, as he reckoned, to be present when the place should be attacked. On the passage, the vessel in which he had embarked was wrecked ; for two days and nights he was exposed, in an open boat, to the perils of the deep, and did not reach the place of his destination till the day after the bombardment. He was in time, however, to enter the city with the American army, and, as long as his ser- vices were required, was the official interpreter. He was appointed Collector of the captured city. He afterwards returned to his native town, and was elected Lieutenant- Governor of the State for the year 1853-54. On the resignation of Governor Philip Allen, to accept the office of United States Senator, he was his successor for the un- expired part of his term of service. Subsequently he took a deep interest in the construction of the Southern Pacific Railway, and was elected President of the company which had started the enterprise. His connection with this com-

Zachariah Allen,

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pany was of short duration, being terminated by his death, which took place in Bristol, in 1858, at the age of sixty- three.

¿LLEN, REV. REUBEN, was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, September 4, 1795. He was converted October 4, 1811, and soon began to hold meetings. His preaching career was com- menced in Northfield and attended by a great revival. Having served an apprenticeship with a black- smith during his boyhood, he worked at his trade for a short time, and then resumed preaching in Hillsborough County, whence he went to Wheelock, Vermont, where he was ordained in the autumn of 1818 as pastor of the Free- will Baptist Church. Here he ministered for three years, but meantime preached in Burlington, St. Albans, and the towns about the lake. In October, 1821, he came to Rhode Island, and reached Burrillville on the day of the organization of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting of the Freewill Baptists, and on the next day preached the scrmon at the first Freewill Baptist ordination that occurred in the State. In 1822 he settled in Rhode Island, and preached on a circuit embracing Pawtucket, Rehoboth, Taunton, Blackstone, and Chepachet, revivals usually following his labors, and churches being finally formed in Taunton, Blackstone, and Chepachet. In December, 1824, he set- tled as pastor in Pawtucket, and in 1826 in Taunton. Re- turning to Rhode Island in the autumn of 1829, he settled at Greeneville, in Smithfield, giving half of his time to Chepachet. In 1830 he began to preach at North Scituate. The churches under him at Greeneville and North Scituate were greatly prospered. In December, 1840, he removed to North Scituate, and remained there until 1845, when he re- signed, and gave himself to the help of feeble churches in Coventry, Natick, West Greenwich, and Warwick. In 1847 he formed a new church in Coventry. Again he settled as pastor of the church in North Scituate, serving that body in all seventeen years. After this he acted with feeble churches as a missionary and evangelist. He baptized about 1400 persons, attended 1600 funerals, and solemnized 650 mar- riages. Mr. Allen was widely known as a bold, earnest, and able preacher. He married (1), in October, 1816, Alice A. G. Sanborn, of Northfield, and (2), May 5, 1824, Phebe Leonard. He died in North Scituate May 30, 1872, in his seventy-seventh year.

LAIN, REV. JOHN, evangelist, was born in Fish- kill, Dutchess County, New York, February 14, 1795. He was the youngest of five children of William and Mary Blain. During his childhood his parents removed to Newtown, and afterwards to Palatine, a new settlement in Montgomery County, New York. His early education was acquired chiefly in the

home circle and from books within his reach. He was trained to hard work and economy. At the age of fifteen he embraced Christianity ; at twenty-three was baptized by Rev. John Bradley, and united with the Baptist church in Albany, the only one then in that city. While en- gaged as a travelling trader he felt a call to preach the gospel, and at once began to prepare himself for the work of the ministry. He pursued his studies in Fairfield, and afterward in Middlebury Academy in Western New York. Duly licensed and ordained, he commenced preaching in November, 1819. His principal settlements in the minis- try were Auburn, New York; Stonington, Connecticut ; Pawtucket, Rhode Island; Providence (Pine Street), Rhode Island ; New York City; Syracuse, New York; Charles- town (two churches), Massachusetts; Central Falls, Rhode Island; Providence (Broadway), Rhode Island; Mans- field, Massachusetts. Yet he was always more of an evan- gelist than a pastor, and as such preached in many places in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachu- setts. During his ministry he had charge of fourteen churches, baptized about three thousand persons, labored in about one hundred revivals, preached in more than one thousand different places, delivered over nine thousand five hundred sermons, and married over two thousand couples. He gave, while living, upwards of nineteen thou- sand dollars to the cause of home and foreign missions, besides giving numberless smaller sums to meet minor cases of need ; and in his last will he bequeathed his prop- erty to mission causes. Having been a soldier in the War of 1812, he received a small pension from the government. In 1823 he married Lucy Carter, of New York State, and had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, who died at the age of thirteen in Syracuse, where also the mother died. In 1843 he married Amy Ann Bliss, a native of Attleboro', Massa- chusetts, who died January 16, 1878. His three brothers all became preachers, and one, Rev. Jacob Blain, is now living, at the age of eighty-seven years. He died in Mans- field, Massachusetts, December 26, 1879, in his eighty- fifth year. He was a man of impressive and pleasing presence, noted for his scriptural knowledge, strong faith, and fervent spirit.

ELLEN, HON. ZACHARIAH, LL.D., son of Zacha- riah and Anne (Crawford) Allen, was born in Providence, September 15, 1795. This ancestral name is found in the earliest records of Plymouth Colony. It appears by the statistics of the New York Historical Society (I. G. Dudley, 1852,) that " the first calico printing in New England was done by Zacha- riah Allen (his father), who largely imported India cotton, and employed Hermann Vandeuscn from Mulhausen." On the mother's side was a Scotch ancestor, Crawford, and a French ancestor, Gabriel Bernon, a Huguenot, who fled to Boston from La Rochelle in 1688, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and obtained a grant of twenty-five

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hundred acres of land at Oxford, Massachusetts, and planted a French colony there. In the records of the Massachu- sctts Historical Society (Vol. II., 3d serics) it is stated, " Gabriel Bernon came from an ancient family in France. He built a mill at Oxford for manufactures, and a fort for protection against the Indians." After the destruction of his plantation by the Indians, he removed to Newport. In Arnold's History of Rhode Island it is recorded, " To the persevering piety and untiring zeal of Gabriel Bernon the first three Episcopal churches in Rhode Island owe their origin, viz., Trinity Church, in Newport, the Narragansett Church and St. John's Church in Providence." The brothers of Zachariah Allen were Governor Philip Allen and Craw- ford Allen, and his great grandmother was Mary Harris, daughter of Thomas Harris, brother of William Harris, one of the original settlers who came to Providence with Roger Williams. Mr. Allen was educated at a school in Medford, Massachusetts, at Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, and at Brown University, from which he graduated in 1813. He studied law two years in the office of James Burrill; was admitted to practice in the Rhode Island courts in 1815, and is at present the oldest lawyer in the State. In 1817 he was married to Eliza Harriet Ar- nold, daughter of Welcome Arnold, a distinguished mer- chant of Providence. She died in 1873, leaving three daughters; one married to Andrew Robeson, one to Wil- liam D. Ely, and Candace Allen. Mr. Allen served sev- eral years as a member of the old Town Council of Provi- dence, at a time when the duties included those of a Probate Court, Police, School Committee, Board of Health, Highway and Fire Departments. The Town Atlas (No. I), made under the direction of Mr. Allen, evidences the first systematic survey of the streets ; and the introduction by him, in 1822, of powerful fire-engines, with suction and leading hose, superseded the previous mode of passing water by hand in buckets, and was the commencement of the present improved fire department. This system was shortly after adopted by Mayor Quincy for the city of Boston. In the History of Arboriculture, published by Professor Charles S. Sargent, of Harvard University, it is shown that Mr. Allen took the lead in New England, in the year 1819, in planting acorns, chestnuts, and locusts, for fuel and timber, some of which was sold to contractors for supply- ing locust for the Charlestown Navy Yard for building ves- sels during the War of the Rebellion. In 1822 manufac- turing operations were commenced by Mr. Allen in building the mill and village of Allendale, on the Wonas- quatucket River, in North Providence. To improve the water-power of this river, it appears by the State records that a charter was granted, in 1822, to " Zachariah Allen and others for constructing reservoirs for retaining flood waters for use during the droughts of summer." This was the first charter in the United States pursuant to sys- tematic plans of making reservoirs for hydraulic purposes. To obtain a more perfect knowledge of civil engineering,

Mr. Allen went to Europe, in 1825, where he passed a year in examining public and private works of scientific skill, and subsequently published the result of his observa- tions in a volume entitled The Science of Mechanics ap- plied to the Useful Arts in Europe and America, which was valued by American manufacturers. Soon after ap- peared from his pen two volumes of Sketches of Society, Scenery, and of the Arts in Great Britain, France, and Holland, which were also favorably received at the time. A special visit to examine the original steam-engine made and used by Boulton & Watt, then remaining in its place at their works, led to an important improvement of the old mode of regulating steam-engines by a throttle-valve. He deviscd a method for allowing the full pressure of the steam to act on the piston during a longer or shorter portion of each stroke by means of variable automatic cut-off valves, placed under the control of a centrifugal ball-regulator. This first and original use of automatic cut-off valves was patented by Mr. Allen in 1833, and is now in general use with improvements. In domestic economy, an improved method of distributing heat for warming rooms in dwelling- houses from a single stove, or furnace, was originally in- troduced by Mr. Allen, in the year 1821, by employing conducting-pipes for conveying hot air. After the use of anthracite coal was introduced, in 1825, this labor-saving system was speedily adopted elsewhere. For perfecting the process of raising a fibrous nap by teasels in the manu- facture of cloths, an " extension roller," for smoothly spreading the cloth, was patented by Mr. Allen profitably, and is still continued in use in woollen-mills. During a summer excursion to Niagara Falls Mr. Allen made the earliest, if not the only admeasurement of the volume of water and extent of motor power of that great cataract of one hundred and sixty feet of perpendicular descent; an account of which, with a plan of survey, was published in Silliman's Scientific Journal, April 1844, showing the effective forces to be over seven millions of " horse-power." In originating and promoting the construction of the Provi- dence Water Works Mr. Allen labored for several years, until the community was finally induced to construct them. The published annual reports of the Butler Hospital for the Insane in the City of Providence record the services of Mr. Allen in superintending the construction of the buildings and general management. The recently pub- lished reports of Mr. Edward Atkinson, President of the Boston Manufacturers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company, give details of the very successful results of "the system of vigilant inspection, and of effective apparatus for extinguishing fires, adopted by the Manufacturers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Providence, as origin- ally proposed and organized by Zachariah Allen nearly fifty years ago." In the Reports of the Smithsonian Insti- tute in Washington, published in 1862, are contained the details of another of his efforts for the preservation of both life and property from destruction by fire caused

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by the explosion of kerosene oil, with the modes of testing dangerous oils, which have since been generally adopted and enforced by municipal laws for the safety of the peo- ple. The New England Cotton Manufacturers' Association having invited Mr. Allen to deliver an address in Boston, in April, 1871, on the " Best Modes of Transmission of Power from Motors to Machines," he gave an account of some original improvements made by him for superseding the common use of heavy shafts and cog-wheels revolving slowly, by substituting therefor lighter shafts and pulleys, with swifter revolutions, for transmitting power by leather bands. In the illustrated History of Improvements of the Cotton Manufacture, recently published by Mr. Evan Leigh in England, the rules for transmitting power from motors to machines, given by Mr. Allen, are copied, with the fol- lowing remarks : " The time has now arrived for an inno- vation of the old system of transmission of power from motors to machines; for with our present knowledge of the laws of motion, there is now room for improvement as great as that made by Fairbairn and Lilly, half a century ago, which has had an undisturbed reign ever since. Their speed of shafting and belting is certainly too slow." He further adds, " Light, hollow pipes of iron (smoothly turned gas-pipes), may be advantageously used with quick revolutions in all cotton mills, to drive machinery from the bare shafts, both simply and neatly, if coupled as described in the address of Mr. Allen." Indeed, were it practicable to employ the same velocity of transmission of power in terrestrial, as is employed in celestial, mechanics, by the solar action (190,000 miles per second), Mr. Allen main- tains that a single thread, capable of lifting one pound, might transmit 1,824,000 horse-power, being sufficient to operate all the machinery in Great Britain. As an evidence of his interest in the general diffusion of useful knowledge, the records of the Providence School Committee state, "We are assured by Professor S. S. Greene, that in the year 1840, he visited a public Evening School taught by Samuel Austin, under the auspices of Zachariah Allen, Owen Mason, and other public-spirited individuals." This was probably the commencement of public Free Evening Schools for working people in New England. For the promotion of the welfare of this class, Mr. Allen has long identified himself with their interests and pursuits, while acting as the President of the Providence Association of Manufacturers and Mechanics, and co-operating with them in obtaining contributions for the endowment of the present successful Free Public Library in the city of Providence. His labors . in originally establishing and sustaining the Providence Athenæum, now containing 37,000 volumes, is certified to by the vote of the directors, on receiving his resignation, in the following words : " Mr. Allen was fore- most among the founders of this institution in those early days, when its progress was difficult and uncertain. The records abundantly testify that he has never ceased to ex- tend to the institution his valuable counsel and assistance."

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 58

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