The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 60

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

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ALLETT, GENERAL EDWARD JONES, was born at Fayetteville, North Carolina, May 1, 1797. His

65 parents were Colonel l'eter and Sarah (Mum- 0 ford) Mallett. IFis paternal grandfather was a Huguenot, who, with a colony of his countrymen, emigrated to America and settled at what is now known as New Rochelle, New York, which placc they founded and named in honor of La Rochelle, France, from whence they came. He was a commissary for the British troops in New York and Canada, and died in 1768. His son, whom he often took with him in his foraging expeditions, and educated for a like business, succeeded him until 1776, when he threw up his British commission and ac- cepted a similar position in the American army, went South, soon afterward resigned, and was appointed com- missary for the colony of North Carolina. His maternal grandfather was Captain Robinson Mumford, of New London, Connecticut, a seafaring man, who removed to North Carolina in 1777. General Mallett's father was a prominent and successful merchant of North Carolina, and died in 1805, when the subject of this sketch was nine years of age. His mother was a native of New London, Connecticut. General Mallett graduated from the Univer- sity of North Carolina in 1818. He then studied law for nearly a year, but being obliged to relinquish his studies on account of impaired health, went to Wilmington, chartered a brig, loaded on joint account with the owners, and went as supercargo to the West Indies, thence, on his return voyage, to Providence, Rhode Island, with a cargo consigned to the late Daniel Arnold of that city. A month thereafter he located at Wilmington, North Carolina, where he engaged in business as a commission merchant and ship- ping agent. While in Providence he made the acquaintance of Sarah Fenner, second daughter of the late Governor James Fenner, whom he married in 1820. In 1823 he removed to Providence, where he engaged in the commission and shipping business until 1829, when, on account of finan- cial embarrassment occasioned by the great commercial crisis of that year, he retired from mercantile life, and be- came assistant editor of the Providence Herald. Soon after the election of General Jackson to the Presidency, he was appointed Postmaster of Providence, which office he held for fifteen years, and resigned in 1844, two years be- fore the expiration of his official term, his last appointment in that capacity having been received from President Polk, who was his college classmate and warm personal friend. His first wife having died in 1841, he married, in 1844, Abigail Jane, second daughter of the late David L. Haight, of New York, and in 1845 removed to that city, where he engaged successfully in business. In 1847 he invented and obtained a patent for the famous " Bell Telegraph," so generally used in hotels and ocean steamers. In 1853 he was elected President of the St. Nicholas Bank, which position he resigned, and accepted the appointment of United States Consul-General for Italy in 1858. On re-

tiring from the presidency of the St. Nicholas Bank, he received from the directors a handsome testimonial of their estcem and of their appreciation of his services. Ile resigned the consulate and returned home in 1862, when he was appointed paymaster in the United States army by President Lincoln. Although by birth and education a

Southerner, General Mallett opposed secession, and was an

ardent supporter of the government. Since the Civil War he has neither been engaged in business nor held any official position, and for several years has spent the win- ters at home and the summers visiting his children, who are widely scattered. In 1835, during his residence in

Providence, he removed the ancient house, in which the

venerable Moses Brown was born, and erected the brick block now known as Nos. 16, 18, 20, and 22 South Main Street, the basement of which was for some time occupied by the post office. On the rear of the same lot he built the first court-house ever erected in the State. These buildings were occupied by the State and the United States

for the purposes above mentioned until the erection of the Custom-house and Post Office on Weybosset Street, and the Court-house on Benefit Street. General Mallett and the late Colonel William S. Patten were appointed by the

Governor to escort General Lafayette from Plainfield, Connecticut, to Rhode Island, and the former was ap- pointed by the Mayor Chief Marshal when the city of Providence gave welcome to President Jackson and Pres- ident Tyler. He was elected to the Common Council of Providence in 1837; appointed Major-General of the

Rhode Island Militia under Governor John Brown Fran- cis, and has held office under seven different Presidents, all of whom are dead. He spent fifteen years in the civil, four in the diplomatic, and two in the military service, during which time he received and disbursed millions of public money. His varied official career was marked by a prompt and faithful discharge of the duties required of him, and he retired from the public service with an hon- orable record. In 1828 he received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from the University of North Carolina, and in 1836 a similar honor was conferred upon him by Brown University. In 1856 he was elected a life-member of the New York Historical Society. Throughout his life General Mallett has been a strict total abstinence man, and to his temperate habits may be attributed his present mental and bodily vigor; for, notwithstanding his ad- vanced age, he enjoys perfect health, and exhibits great buoyancy of spirits. He has had ten children : Sarah Fenner, who married Colonel S. S. Lee, of Baltimore ; James Fenner, who married Louisa Steinhauer, and now resides in Milo, Illinois; Charles Peter ; Edward Jones, deceased ; Ellen de Bernier, who married Hon. J. Hell- yard Cameron, and now resides in Toronto, Canada ; George Russell, deceased; Arthur Fenner, deceased ; Alice, deceased ; Amy Fenner, who married William D. Murray, and resides in Toronto ; Edward Jones, who mar-

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ried Mary Ada McNally, and resides in Denver, Colo- rado.

RAZARD, GEORGE, died at Newport, August 10, 1797. He was engaged in mercantile affairs, and held various offices of honor and trust during his active life. In 1762 he was one of a committee to prepare an address of thanks to his Majesty for giving his royal consent to the repeal of the Stamp Act, and the same year, with others, was appointed by the General Assembly to ascertain and report to that body the amount of bills of credit issued by the colony. He was a deputy from Newport ; for more than thirty years he represented the town in the General Assembly, and for twelve years held the office of Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Newport County, which office he resigned in 1776. In 1784, when Newport received its first charter, Mr. Hazard was elected mayor, and was a member of the convention that adopted the Constitution of the United States. At his death he had attained to his seventy-fourth year. Mr. Hazard left a number of descend- ants. One of his sons, the late Nathaniel Hazard, was a Member of Congress from 1819 to December 18, 1820, when he died.

HACE, HARVEY, manufacturer, son of Oliver and Susannah (Buffington) Chace, was born in Som- erset (then a part of Swansey) Massachusetts, August 31, 1797. His ancestor, in the sixth gene- ration back, was William Chace (then spelled Chase) who came from England in 1630 and settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he remained till 1637, when he removed to Yarmouth, Massachusetts. His son William, Jr., had a son Joseph, whose son Job had a son Jonathan, the father of Oliver, the father of the sub- ject of this sketch. The second William was a mem- ber of the Society of Friends, to which his descend- ants have generally adhered. Joseph removed to that part of Swansey now included in Somerset, where Har- vey was born. Many of this family, however, removed to and became important citizens of Fall River. Job and Jonathan were substantial farmers. Oliver was a farmer, a carpenter, and a skilful millwright. Remov- ing to Swansey he built a cotton factory in 1806, hav- ing acquired knowledge and skill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in connection with the manufacturing operations of Samuel Slater. His spinning-frames were after the pattern introduced by Mr. Slater. He started his mill in Swansey and operated it successfully till 1813, when he removed to Fall River, where, in connection with Eber Slade, Benjamin Slade, Amey Borden, and others, he erected the celebrated Troy Mill for spinning and weaving cotton,-the first cotton-mill erected in Fall River. (The

place, it may be remembered, was then called Troy.) In this enterprise of the Troy Mill, Oliver was the guiding mechanic and controlling mind. He was a man of great strength of body and intellect, of remarkable directness of purpose and integrity of conduct. Until his death he was identified with the growth and prosperity of Fall River, as agent first of the Troy and second of the Pocasset Mills. An anecdote illustrates his tact in dealing with shrewd men. Boarding a vessel, lately arrived, freighted with shingles, and asking their price, he was answered by the owner, " If you pick them out they will be five dollars per thousand ; if I pick them out they will be four dollars per thousand." He promptly responded, " Thee may pick them out and I will take the whole cargo." He married Susannah Buf- fington, September 15, 1796, and had seven children, Har- vey, Samuel B., Aseneth, Mary, Jonathan, Elizabeth, and Oliver, Jr. He died in Fall River, in 1852, aged eighty- three years. He was the first to spell the family name Chace instead of Chase. Harvey was educated at the common schools, and in the faith of his fathers. At the age of six years he began to work as a bobbin-boy in the mill managed by his father, and gradually acquired his father's taste and skill as a manufacturer. At the age of fifteen he went to Burrillville, Rhode Island, where he put in the machinery and started the mill known as the Tar-Kiln Factory, run- ning five hundred spindles. Here, working for his father and others, he remained one year. In 1813 he entered the employ of the Troy Company, Fall River, and before he was twenty-one years of age he was often sent to Boston to sell yarn, and to purchase cotton. He remained with this company till 1843, becoming a stockholder, and for fifteen years acting as its agent and treasurer. In 1839 his father bought the mill-estate at Valley Falls, Rhode Island, on the Cumberland side of the Blackstone River, and leased it to his sons Harvey and Samuel B., who formed a co- partnership, under the firm-name of H. & S. B. Chace. Samuel B. then removed to Valley Falls. Harvey fol- lowed in 1843. They were steadily prospered. In a few years they were able to meet both principal and in- terest of certain obligations that, in the pressure of 1837, in a company interest with Joseph C. Luther, had been necessarily settled by a compromise with creditors. They were pained because one of their notes could not be found. Years after the claim had been outlawed, this note was found in the hands of a person that was in need. The brothers now experienced one of the greatest joys of their lives in paying both principal and interest of this outlawed note. The money thus paid was the means of building up the man who received it. In a few years the brothers, by industry and economy, were able to enlarge their busi- ness. On the death of their father, in 1852, and the dis- tribution of his estate, their brother Oliver became con- nected with them in business. The three formed the Val- ley Falls Company, and purchased the property across the river on the south side (now in Lincoln). In 1854 H. & S.

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B. Chace purchased the Albion Mills, and, in 1856, pur- chascd the Moodus Cotton Factory, in Connecticut. In 1868 the property of these firms was divided, Harvey be- coming owner of the Albien Mills, Moodus Mills, and cor- tain property in Fall River, and Samuel B. becoming owner of the Valley Falls property. Harvey now received his two sons, James L. and Jonathan, as copartners, and the three formed a new corporation, of which Harvey was the Presi- dent, and James H. and Jonathan were agents and treas- urers. This firm (always really two corporations-one in Rhode Island, and one in Connecticut) still remains (1881), and is widely known as the Albion Company, and Moodus Company. Harvey has been largely connected with other interests. Before leaving Fall River, he was one of the promoters and corporators of the Fall River Reservoir Company, and was afterwards deeply interested in the Reservoirs in the Blackstone River. He was one of the founders of the Fall River Savings Bank, and a leading spirit in surveying and opening new roads and; turnpikes. No one surpassed him as a surveyor of new routes, and a calculator on the travelling needs of the country. He was a prime mover in the Pawtucket Gas Company. He was particularly active in laying out the Providence and Wor- cester Railroad, and in securing the course of the southern portion, and was one of the first directors of the company. He was the master spirit in securing the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Railroad, connecting Valley Falls and Franklin, becoming President of the company. His re- ligious connections have been with the Swansey, the Fall River, and the Providence Monthly Meetings, the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, and the New England Yearly Meeting. To all the interests-of the Friends he has been a steady and large contributor. He was ever earnest and active in the cause of anti-slavery, even when that cause was unpopular, his home being a safe way-station of the " underground railroad " from Dixie to Canada. Politically he has been a Whig and a Republican, but has declined to accept political offices. He has been promi- nent in all moral reforms. To the cause of temperance he lent the strong influence of his voice and his example. While a young man in Hallowell, Maine, he formed the first temperance society in the town, of which he was the first member. Alike ready for every good word and work, he has done much to advance the welfare of the commu- nity. He married, September 8, 1824, Hannah Wood, daughter of William Wood, of Dartmouth, Massachusetts. The Woods, like the Chaces, were members of the Society of Friends. Mrs. Chace died in 1833, being the mother of three children, only two of whom are living: James H., born in Fall River, November 12, 1827, and Jonathan, born in Fall River, July 22, 1829. These sons, after being educated in the New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School, in Providence, became associated in business with their father, and are now the managers of the Albion and Moodus mills. They and their father reside at Valley

Falls. Mr. Chace married, second, September 26, 1835, Anna Earle, daughter of Silas Earle, of Leicester, Mass.

AZARD, HON. ROWLAND GIBSON, LL.D., son of Rowland and Mary Peace Hazard, was born in the family mansion where his grandfather resided, on the southern slope of Tower Hill, in South Kings- town, Rhode Island, October 9, 1801. His gene- alogy is given in the work entitled Old Time Recollections, by Thomas R. Hazard, of Vaucluse, near Newport. His boyhood was favored with the ordinary advantages of edu- cation, first at Burlington, New Jersey, next at Bristol, Penn- sylvania, and finally at the Friends' Boarding School, at Westtown, Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he became especially interested in the study of mathematics, which has ever since been to him a favorite recreation. Before leaving school, which he did in the spring of 1818, he dis- covered a new and simple mode of describing the hyperbola, by which its property of forever approaching a certain right line without the possibility of ever reaching it was made obvious even to the unscientific observer. Though he left school thus early without any instruction in composition or in those abstract sciences which he subsequently pursued, he had in his paternal home advantages of daily intercourse with minds of rare intelligence and elevation. To the special influence of his mother and sisters he has gratefully alluded. In 1819 he returned to his native town, and in connection with his eldest brother, the late Hon. Isaae Peace Hazard, engaged in the manufacturing business, giv- ing close attention to all its details during a period of over forty years. In 1866 he retired from that business with an ample fortune, leaving his factories in Peace Dale in the care of his sons, Rowland and John N. Hazard, who are still carrying on an extensive business there. But the finan- cial abilities of the subject of this sketch could not remain in retirement. His clear insight into the complicated rela- tions of corporate bodies to the public, and his sense of justice have frequently brought him into prominence as a defender of public interests and of the rights of individuals. About the year 1851 he introduced a bill into the Rhode Island General Assembly concerning railroad corporations, claiming that as they took private property they were bound to give a reasonable public benefit in return, and that a public benefit was that to which each individual had an equal right. This limitation of the assumed absolute right then claimed by said corporations arrayed them in solid opposition to Mr. Hazard's bill, and naturally drew to their aid the wealth which owned the roads, and with it, to a great extent, the influence of financial institutions and the press. This antagonism raised a storm of debate seldom witnessed in legislative bodies, in which Mr. Hazard's ability in argument and eloquence was fully demonstrated. The result was that his powerful presentation of the rights

RG Hazard.

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of the public and of individuals in relation to railroad cor- porations secured the triumph of the principles for which he so earnestly contended, and which have since been uni- versally acknowledged as sound and equitable. His own business transactions in which large amounts were involved were successful, and have established confidence in him as an adviser in regard to public finances. At a time when the Union Pacific Railroad Company was seriously em- barrassed by their want of funds and credit, those most deeply interested appealed to Mr. Hazard, at Peace Dale, to go to New York and give his personal attention to its finances. This he refused to do, and reminded them that he had united with them in the enterprise on the express condition that he should not be expected to bestow any labor or thought upon it; but on their statement of the ur- gency of the case, that otherwise bankruptcy was imminent, he went and spent several months in persistent, arduous, and eventually successful efforts to retrieve their financial con- dition, and left with the expectation that his services would not be further needed. He, however, on several occasions thereafter found it necessary to give not only much thought and labor, but to aid by direct advances of money and by individual indorsements to a very large amount. His de- termination that a prominent officer of the Company, to whose dishonesty Mr. Hazard attributed its financial dif- ficulties, should be prosecuted, led him into very arduous litigation, requiring from its complicated character his per- sonal attention in procuring and presenting the proof of the numerous frauds which he charged had been committed. This case has now been in the courts over twelve years, and the arguments written by Mr. Hazard in it and in one other important case which has just been decided in his favor, February, 1881, are more voluminous and required more study and labor than all his other writings. During the Civil War he did much to sustain our national credit at home and abroad. His newspaper articles on the public finances were collected and published in pamphlet form mainly by bankers in New York for foreign readers. Collections of them were published in London, and epitomes were translated and published in Amsterdam, and had much influence there and at Frankfort-on-the- Main, and through these and Mr. Hazard's personal inter- views, European bankers who at that crisis were becoming distrustful were induced to hold and increase their invest- ments in United States bonds. This action was taken after conference with President Lincoln and the Secretary of the Treasury, in which an official position was suggested, but he preferred to act unofficially. From the beginning of the war Mr. Hazard was in frequent conference with the authorities at Washington. At one time the Treasury was depleted, our bonds unsalable, and there was great need of money. Secretary Fessenden was advised that to effect sales it was necessary to increase the paper circulation, and . thus by making money more abundant, induce investment in the Government issues. Mr. Hazard was alarmed by

the suggestion. To him it seemed clear that such a course would lead to national bankruptcy, but so also would the want of money. He applied himself to the problem and then visited Mr. Fessenden, whom he found, very despond- ent, at Portland, Maine. He represented to the Secretary that the proposed expansion would be followed by speedy ruin; that the effect of expansion would be to diminish the purchasing power of the currency in a ratio greater than its increase, which would thus augment the cost of the war, and lessen the credit of the Government, and in the pro- cess expansion would make money scarcer; but that con- tracting the currency would increase its purchasing power, would make it more plentiful, and release a portion of it from the channels of trade for the purchase of bonds. After two interviews with Mr. Fessenden at Portland, and others by arrangement with him in New York and Washington, and after some correspondence, the Secretary accepted Mr. Hazard's views so far as to abandon the idea of expansion. These views at first struck Mr. Fessenden, as also the financiers who had advised expansion, as para- doxical, but they were very generally convinced by Mr. Hazard's reasonings, and the views themselves are now generally accepted. It was a rare illustration of the influ- ence of abstract thought on the course of practical affairs. His arguments on this subject were published in the New York Evening Post and other newspapers, and were sub- sequently reprinted in a pamphlet with other articles under the title of Our Resources. About the year 1833 he began spending the winters in New Orleans for his health, and continued to do so about ten years, combining business with those visits. In the winter of 1841-2, while there, a colored citizen of Rhode Island applied to him for relief from the chain-gang. Captain Samuel C. Bailey, of New- port, was then in New Orleans. He says " the chain-gangs were made up of criminal slaves and negroes from the free States, who were there seized for being on shore from their ships, and others who had attempted to escape from bond- age. About twenty were in a gang. Around their ankles were iron clasps with ox-chains attached about five feet long. The gangs were employed in cleaning the streets. If a person chanced to speak to one of them the lash of the driver would fall heavily on the poor negro spoken to. Their quarters were in a wretched prison, lower floor, damp and dark. Not one man in one thousand would have dared to manifest sympathy for them." Mr. Hazard sought to obtain justice for these suffering.negroes. He proceeded openly through the courts of Louisiana, and as he could not converse with the sufferers in the streets, he visited them in the prison very early in the morning before the gangs were taken out to their tasks, or on Sundays. The prison officials soon denied him admission, but he procured orders from the courts. At this time public sen- timent there was very irritable on the subject, and he was constantly threatened by officers of the municipality, and by others, with the extremity of "Lynch law." Mr. Haz-

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ard was fearless. Ile was much assisted by Mr. Jacob Barker, who was then doing a large banking business in New Orleans, and having the privilege of appearing as attorney in the courts, did so whenever his services were desired, for which he generously declined any fee. Their united efforts resulted in liberating a large number from the chain-gangs, and in procuring a presentment by the grand jury in New Orleans of a number of the officials, with in- structions to the prosecuting officer to proceed against them immediately for cruelty to those negroes. An interesting letter from Dr. Channing to Mr. Hazard, in reference to the courage and humanity of the latter, with Mr. Barker, may be found in the Memoirs of Channing, third volume, and page 239. Politically, Mr. Hazard has exhibited no fondness for the arts of the selfish politician, but his course has been marked as one of philanthropy and well-founded moral principles. He was early identified with the Free Soil and Anti-Slavery party, and was one of the founders of the Republican party. He with Edward Harris, of Woonsocket, attended its first convention, which met in Pittsburg, and was on the Committee on Platform and Resolutions, and he was a Delegate to the Philadelphia Convention of 1856, and in that campaign many of the resolutions and addresses published in Rhode Island were from his pen. His connection with the early conventions of the Republican party was so prominent that the South- ern newspapers noticed it, and Southerners were warned not to buy " Hazard's goods." A leading house in Charles- ton, which for many years had been his agent, advised him that the effort to sell his goods was useless, as Southerners would not buy them. This necessitated the abandonment of the Southern business. Mr. Hazard was also a mem- ber of the Chicago Convention, in 1860, which nominated Abraham Lincoln, and he participated in forming the plat- form of that convention. In 1864 he was in Europe, but in 1868 he was again a Delegate to the convention at Chi- cago, which nominated General Grant, where he was on the Committee on Platform, and was the author of the finan- cial portion. In 1851-2, in 1854-5, and in 1880-1 he was a Member of the Rhode Island House of Representa- tives, and in 1866-7 was a Member of the Rhode Island Senate. Mr. Hazard has exhibited his philanthropy pecu- niarily as well as in his public services and literary produc- tions. He co-operated with his brothers, Hon. Isaac P. and Thomas R. Hazard, who were the prime movers in founding the Butler Hospital, and rendered very essential service in interesting Mr. Butler, and in obtaining from him his munificent endowment. The citizens of his town acknowledge Mr. Hazard's benefactions in the support of their schools and churches, and in the erection of their valuable Town House. The " Hazard Professorship of Physics," in Brown University, was founded by his endow- ment of $40,000. He has thrice visited Europe, where he was associated with men of eminence in the great financial circles. While in England he was personally intimate

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 60

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