The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 98

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

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field has inherited many of the characteristics of his an- cestors,-energy, perseverance, prudence, and executive ability.

RADY, ISAAC FOOTE, Superintendent of the Public Schools of Barrington, Rhode Island, son of Henry

Green and Margaret Parsons (Foote) Cady, was born in Munson, Massachusetts, October 10, 1818. His parents were both teachers in public schools, and his father for many years held the offices of selectman and assessor in the town of Munson. Mr. Cady prepared for college at the Munson Academy, then under the direction of Mr. Hammond, a celebrated teacher. He entered Brown University in 1841, and during the course took prizes for three successive years, and the first prize ever awarded by the college for English composition was equally divided between him and another student. After graduating he taught at the Academy in Wethersfield, Connecticut, during the school year of 1845-46. The next two years were spent as teacher in the Providence, Rhode Island, High School, at the end of which time he organized the first High School in Warren, Rhode Island, and was its Principal from that time until 1870, with the exception of the year 1853-54, which he spent as teacher of the classical department of Chatham Academy in Sa- vannah, Georgia. In 1870 he resigned his position as Principal of the Warren High School and established a private school of his own in the town of Barrington, Rhode Island, which he carried on successfully until the beginning of the present year (1880) when ill health com- pelled him to give up teaching. He is at present, and has been since 1872, Superintendent of the Public Schools of Barrington. He was also for many years a member of the School Committee of Warren. Mr. Cady has been a fre- quent contributor to educational journals, and has lectured on educational subjects before the American Institute of Instruction, and the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction. Of the latter he was for many years Vice-President, and in 1874 and 1875 President. In 1843 he united with the Union Congregational Church of Providence, and for sev- eral years has been a prominent member of the Congrega- tional Church of Barrington. In August, 1848, he mar- ried Clementine S. Lee, daughter of Newell Lee, of Paw- tuxet, Rhode Island. They have had eight children, all born in Warren, and three of whom died in infancy. Those now living are Henry Newell, Mary Kellogg, Hamilton L., Margaret A., and Caroline. Henry Newell Cady, born July 8, 1849, graduated from Brown University in the class of 1869. After graduating he served an appren- ticeship in the office of A. S. Morse, an architect in Provi- dence, and has since acquired considerable celebrity as an artist, many of his pictures having brought good prices at the best picture stores in the country. Mary Kellogg Cady pursued a thorough course of study at her father's school, graduated from the Rhode Island State Normal School,

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and has taught four years successfully in the public schools of New Jersey. But few men in the educational field have exerted greater influence for good in the section where he has lived than Mr. Cady, there being to-day prominent representatives in all the professions whose character he has been largely instrumental in forming.

EAN, HON. SIDNEY, was born at Glastenbury, Hartford County, Connecticut, November 16, 1818. His parents were Amos and Nancy Robinson (Kempton) Dean, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, who removed to Glastenbury in 1812, in which year Mr. Dean's father built the second cotton mill in Connecti- cut, of which he was part owner and manager until 1849. Mr. Dean was educated at the academies in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and Suffield, Connecticut. In 1843 he be- came a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and continued his labors therein until 1853, when he was obliged to give up preaching and study on account of im- paired health. Leaving the ministry, he engaged in a large manufacturing business in Putnam, Connecticut, and served one year in the Connecticut Legislature. In 1855 he was elected to Congress from his district, on the American Re- publican ticket, and at the close of his term, in 1857, was re-elected on the Republican ticket. During both terms he served on important committees, and his congressional career was marked by great ability and devotion to the pub- lic interests. He subsequently spent a year in travel, vis- iting various places of interest in the United States, Canada, and Cuba, and then entered upon the active duties of the ministry, being first assigned by his Conference to a Meth- odist church at Pawtucket, Rhode Island. One year there- after he received the appointment of pastor of the Mathew- son-Street Methodist Church, of Providence, where he soon attracted great attention by his eloquence and exposition of Gospel truths. His church was largely attended, and he became widely known as a pulpit orator. On leaving this church he spent nearly two years as pastor in Warren, after which he retired from the active work of the ministry to engage in journalism. In 1864 he became editorially connected with the Providence Daily Press, and in 1865 was elected agent and manager of the Providence Press Company, which position he held until October 25, 1880. In 1870 he was elected State Senator from Warren, and during the term was the acknowledged leader of the branch of the Legislature of which he was a member. He de- clined a renomination, in order to devote himself to his editorial duties. As an editor he is known as a bold, vig- orous writer, firm in vindicating the right, and fearless in the denunciation of wrong. He was a Grand Master of the Grand Lodge, I. O. O. F., of the State of Rhode Island, for the year 1878, and is now (1880) Grand Patriarch of the Grand Encampment of that order in the State. In 1839 he married Miss Martha A. Hollister, of South Glasten-

bury, Connecticut, who died in 1841, their children being Frederick Woodward Dean, now residing at Glastenbury ; and Martha Ellen, who married Captain Dennison II. Fin- ley. formerly of Connecticut, but now a resident of Provi- dence, who served in the late war, in the Thirteenth Regi- ment of Connecticut Volunteers. In 1865 Mr. Dean married Annie Eddy, daughter of James M. Eddy, of Warren, Rhode Island. His children by his second mar- riage are Walter Sidney, and Arthur Kempton Dean. Mr. Dean resides in Warren, where he has a pleasant home, well stored with fine-art treasures and a choice library, such as a man of literary tastes would naturally acquire during a long life.

CROWN, REV. SAMUEL CARTER, D.D., son of Sam- uel and Dorcas (Jordan) Brown, was born in Westbrook, Maine, July 12, 1818. His father was a native of Vermont, of good family, and was the son of Francis and Abigail (Carter) Brown. His mother was a native of Maine, and a lineal descendant, in the third generation, of Rev. Robert Jordan, an English clergyman, and one of the first that settled in Maine. Sam- uel C. received excellent home training, and was educated at the public schools, in the Thatcher Grammar School, and in the Maine Wesleyan Seminary. His principal studies were Latin, Greek, and mental and moral philosophy. After leaving the seminary he devoted himself to theologi- cal studies, and at the same time engaged in teaching moral science and belles-lettres in the seminary in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. In East Greenwich he was licensed to preach, and was appointed to the pastoral charge of the Methodist Episcopal Church in that place. At the expiration of a two years' pastorate he was admitted, July 7, 1844, to the order of a deacon in the Methodist Episco- pal Church at Newport, Rhode Island, by Bishop Edmund S. Jancs, D.D., and at the same time was received into the Providence Conference. He was then re-appointed to East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and remained two years. Having passed an examination in the theological and ecclesiasticaI studies of a four years' course, he was ad- vanced to the order of an Elder by Bishop Beverly Waugh, at Norwich, Connecticut, April 12, 1846. Dr. Brown has been a pastor in New Bedford, Fairhaven, Taunton, Wey- mouth, and Fall River, Massachusetts; in St. Paul's Church, in the latter place two terms; also in Warren and Provi- dence, Rhode Island; in the latter place at both Chestnut Street and Mathewson Street churches. In all these pas- torates he remained the full time allowed by the rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church, save in one case, when ill health compelled him to rest for one year. He was finally appointed Presiding Elder, and held that office, with the highest respect and suecess, for eight consecutive years. On retiring from this position he received both in the Providence and Fall River Districts the amplest testimonials of his ability and fidelity, and was elected treasurer of the

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Conference Ministerial Aid Society and of the Church Extension Board, both of which responsible offices he still holds. During his pastorate of the Chestnut Street Church, in Providence, he received the honorary degree of A.M. from Genesee College, now Syracuse University, New York. While pastor of St. Paul's Church, in Fall River, he was honored with the degree of D.D. by the State University of Indiana. He received three successive elections to the Quadrennial Sessions of the General Conference, viz., in 1860, 1864, and 1868, and was a reserve delegate in 1872. In 1868 he was elected by the General Conference to represent the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States at the General Conference of the Methodist Episco- pal Church in Canada, and he visited Canada for that purpose in 1870, being the only official representative from the Church in the United States. He married, in Septem- ber, 1850, Maria Russell, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, daughter of Benjamin and Hannah (Howland) Russell. Mr. Russell was of the widely-known business house of Seth Russell & Sons, in their day largely engaged in the whaling business. Having a taste for drawing and painting, Mr. Russell made a voyage around the world, making sketches which he afterwards put on canvas and exhibited in the principal cities of our country, receiving great praise. Dr. Brown has one child, a son, R. F. C. Brown, M.D., born in Warren, Rhode Island, where he is now a practicing physician. In this town the subject of this sketch now resides, filling his denominational offices, being also man- aging agent of the Martha's Vineyard Camp-Meeting Association, at Cottage City, and writing for various peri- odicals. He has resided in Warren for the last sixteen years, and is regarded as one of the ablest and worthiest representatives of his denomination.

HITTEMORE, REV. DAVID RICHARDS, was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, July 31, 1819. He was the sixteenth child of Eleazer and Lydia Richards Whittemore, of a well-known New Hamp- shire family. The residence of the father was in that part of the town which became Franklin in 1828. In 1835 Mr. Whittemore left the employment of the farm, to which his earlier years were devoted, and went to Lowell, Massachusetts, where he was successively a mechanic's apprentice, a student in Dracut Academy, and the publish- ing agent of Zion's Banner, a weekly religions newspaper. During this period he was especially active in religious work. Early in 1842 he removed to Rhode Island, and in October of that year was ordained to the gospel ministry, and became pastor of the Free Baptist Church in North Providence. Rev. Martin Cheney and Rev. James A. McKenzie were members of the council. In 1846 he be- came pastor of the South Free Baptist Church in Newport. Since 1849 he has resided in the western part of Provi- dence. He has been widely known as a member of the

Free Baptist denomination ; has aided many of its churches in supplying pulpits, securing pastors, and in other ways. He was an outspoken Abolitionist, when it cost something to be one; has always been an advocate of total absti - nence and prohibition; and, for many years, has been an officer in the Rhode Island Peace Society. He has been connected with many benevolent enterprises in the State. At the same time he has been successfully engaged in insurance and other business; and while he has com- bined the work of both a clergyman and a layman, he has sustained a character which honors both. Incisiveness of intellect, correctness of judgment, and positiveness of opin- ion are traits for which he is distinguished, which make him a wise counsellor and a bold leader. Mr. Whittemore married, in November, 1842, Eliza Jane Gilbert, of Fran- cistown, New Hampshire, and has four children, of whom one is a member of the School Committee of Providence, two are the editors, publishers, and printers of the Burrill- ville Gazette, and one is the wife of the editor and pub- lisher of a weekly paper in Iowa.

TTER, REV. GEORGE BENJAMIN, of Westerly, Rhode Island, son of William and Dolly (Wil- cox) Utter, was born in Plainfield, Otsego County, New York, February 4, 1819. He was cducated in the common school of his native village at Unadilla Forks, and at the academy of Whitesboro, until he was thirteen years of age, and then learned the trade of a printer, working two years in Homer and two in Schenec- tady, New York. At the latter place he became a member of the Apprentices Library Association, read many of its books, took an active part in its literary exercises and debates, and here formed the purpose to pursue a course of classical study. In 1836 he entered the Oneida Insti- tute, at Whitesboro, graduating therefrom in 1840, when he entered the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, from which he graduated in June, 1843. Three weeks prior to his graduation from the latter institution he was ordained as a minister of the gospel at a meeting of the Seventh Day Baptist Eastern Association, and soon after- wards, at the request of that association, sailed for Eng- land for the purpose of establishing closer fraternal rela- tions with churches of kindred faith in that country, and also of studying in the libraries of London and Oxford the history of Sabbath discussions, in the meantime collecting books which should form the nucleus of a Sabbath library in this country. Returning to the city of New York in the spring of 1844, he joined with others in establishing in that city the weekly religious newspaper, the first of the kind in this country, and which is still published (though elsewhere) the Sabbath Recorder. This soon became the recognized organ of the Seventh-Day Baptist denomination. He gave himself to the management of this paper, and to occasional preaching. For about twenty-five years he

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edited and published this periodical, and in the meantime had an oversight of the monthly, quarterly, and annual publications, and the books and reports of various kinds issued by his denomination. After the opening of the Civil War, in 1861, as he had become interested in a print- ing and publishing establishment in Westerly, Rhode Island, he removed to that place, taking with him the pub- lications issued in New York, and continued to publish them in Westerly, in connection with the publication of a local secular newspaper, the Narragansett Weekly. In 1872 he sold the denominational periodicals to a socicty, wishing to make them the nucleus of a publishing estab- lishment located near the university at Alfred Centre, Alle- ghany County, New York. Since that time his attention has been given to the editing of the Narragansett Weekly, at Westerly, the publishing of books, pamphlets, and re- ports, to occasional preaching, and the discharge of official duties connected with various benevolent societies. He also devotes much of his time to public enterprises and affairs of the Town Council, of which for years he has been a member, and to the interests of the First School District of Westerly, of which he was one of the trustees, taking an active part in the grading of the schools and in all edu- cational movements. As a writer and publisher he has issued twenty-five volumes of the Sabbath Recorder, twelve volumes of a Sabbath-school paper, three volumes of a Seventh-Day Baptist memorial, one hymn book, one hymn and tune book, one Seventh-Day Baptist manual, and twenty-two volumes of the Narragansett Weekly. He married (1) in 1845, Catharine C. Stillman, (2) in 1847, Mary S. Maxson, and (3) in 1871, Harriet (Wells) Still- man, widow of Welcome Stillman. He has a son, George H., who graduated at Amherst College in 1877. Mr. Utter is a representative man in his denomination, and a leading citizen in the southern part of the State, though he has avoided public political positions. His hands have been full of good work, which has been done thoroughly and conscientiously.

ARMER, PROFESSOR MOSES GERRISH, scientist, eldest child of Colonel John and Sally (Gerrish) Farmer, was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, February 9, 1820. In early life he attended the district' school of his native town, and the Academy on Boscawen Plain, entered Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1837, and Dartmouth Col- lege in 1840, where he remained three years, and then was obliged to leave on account of ill-health. The degree of A.M. was conferred upon him by the faculty of Dartmouth in 1853. A few months after leaving college he became the preceptor of the academy at Eliot, Maine, and was married in that town, December 25, 1844, to Miss Hannah Tobey, daughter of Richard Shaplcigh, of Berwick, Maine. He removed immediately to Dover, New Hampshire, and took charge of the Belknap School there, in which he taught

until the summer of 1847, when he turned his attention wholly to scientific pursuits. During these years he found his recreations in the study of music, which was with him from childhood an all-absorbing passion, and in conse- quence of which other studies were often neglected. His fondness for mathematics and his love for music made him a thorough harmonist. He began his experiments in elec- tricity in 1845, inventing at that time an electro-magnetic engine. The next year he constructed a small railroad track, and exhibited it and a small electro-magnetic engine in various towns and cities, lecturing upon the subject of electro-magnetism and its applications, showing also how it could be adapted to the use of torpedoes and submarine blasting. In December, 1847, he left Dover and opened a telegraph office in South Framingham, Massachusetts, and also had charge of the line between Boston, Worcester, and Springfield. While here he tried the experiment of telegraphing by the use of the current from an induction coil, using a common medical machine for the purpose. Soon afterwards, at the request of Hon. F. O. J. Smith, he devised a machine to give an alarm of fire over the tele- graph. He took the striking-part of an old clock, and in- vented the electrical part necessary to construct a miniature machine. He exhibited it in Boston in 1849, and it worked perfectly, and was the first machine in the world for giving an alarm of fire by electricity. Later, he brought to perfec- tion in Boston, Massachusetts, the system of fire alarm tele- graph now in use in almost every large city and town in the United States and Canada. Having conscientious scruples about the work required of him on the Sabbath by the New York Telegraph Company, he was released by them, and in July, 1848, removed to Salem, Massachusetts, where he resided until 1872. He had charge of the telegraph office in that city until 1849, when he left it to open some new offices on the Vermont and Boston line, commencing with Manchester, New Hampshire. While there he invented the open-circuit automatic repeater. This line was worked on the Bain, or chemical, system. In May, 1850, he was appointed Superintendent of the line from Boston to Bur- lington, and continued in this position until he left to enter upon the work connected with the Boston Fire Alarm, in 1851. Between 1852 and 1855 he devised and constructed an apparatus by which he was enabled to transmit four messages simultaneously over a single wire. About this time he devised a printing telegraph, and was the first to make use of the "unison stop." He was also the first to suggest the use of the continuity-preserving key in the du- plex telegraph. In 1852-53 he constructed a chronograph for determining the velocity of sound. The same year he received a patent on an improved porous cell for galvanic batteries. In 1854 he experimented largely on magneto- electric machines, and deposited copper in several cells arranged in series, and endeavored to ascertain the me- chanical power required to accomplish it. He also em- ployed electro-magnetic machines to strike the bells of the

Moses G. Farmer.

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fire-alarm telegraph; applied water-power to raise the bell hammers; contrived and constructed a resistance-coil with electrostatic capacity, produced by winding sheets of tin- foil between each layer of wire, and made improvements in diaphragm water-meters. In 1855 he invented improve- ments in fire-alarm signal apparatus; experimented on dial telegraphs, on telegraphs for double transmission in the same direction, and on electric signals for railroads. This year he was elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1856 he commenced the business of electrotyping, and produced the first under- cut electrotype in this country, from a gutta-percha mould ; made a sheet of copper one-eighth of an inch thick brittle as glass, and devoted much attention to electric repeaters, electric clocks, and printing telegraphs, and constructed for the Dudley Observatory, at Albany, New York, a chro- nograph and system of electric clocks. In 1857-58 he made a great many experiments with double transmitters, and constructed a duplex printing telegraph, driven by an electro-magnetic motor. In 1858 he devised electro-mag- netic apparatus to show the height of water in steam- boilers, and invented an automatic regulator for controlling the distribution of electricity to numerous electric lamps. In this year he began investigating the production of light by electricity, which investigations have never been relin- quished; and invented an automatic regulator by which the light can be kept at a uniform intensity for any length of time. In July, 1859, his parlor, in Salem, Massachusetts, was beautifully lighted every evening by this subtle agent. The cost of the light was the only hindrance to its coming into general use. In 1860 '61, '62, '63, he bestowed much attention upon the manufacture of alloys of aluminum with copper and other metals. Between 1864 and 1868, he de- voted a good deal of time to perfecting a thermo-electric battery, and in 1868 constructed the largest one ever built. It was used for the deposition of copper upon steel in the production of the American Compound Telegraph Wire- a joint invention of Professor Farmer and Mr. G. F. Mil- liken, of Boston. In the latter part of 1869 he was em- ployed to examine and report upon the condition of the land lines and cables of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, and as a result of these investigations, he invented a new insulator, of which he furnished over thirty thousand to that company. In 1871 he manufactured a large number of electro-magnetic ma- chines for depositing copper and for other purposes. He has made valuable improvements in the construction of these machines, especially in the one contrived for firing torpedoes. These machines are now supplied to every ship in our navy. In October, 1872, he accepted the posi- tion of electrician at the United States Naval Torpedo Station, established in 1869, at Newport, Rhode Island, for the instruction of the officers of the Navy in electricity and chemistry, as applied to the arts of war, and here he now resides. Professor Farmer stands in the foremost rank of

scientific men, and among the scientists of Great Britain, France, and Germany, his opinions are quoted as author- ity. He has taken out a great many patents, of which the world has now the benefit. As a man and a citizen his influence has ever been on the side of right. To the poor he has been a friend, to the weak a helper. Unlike some scientists of the day, whose speculations lead them to doubt the existence of a Deity and of a revelation, he sees in all the works and laws of nature a divine mind. Each new discovery is to him one of God's thoughts, and with him religion and science go hand in hand. His is a Christian household, and a very happy one. He has had two chil- dren, a son, Edwin Clarence, who died in infancy, and a daughter, Sarah J., who is still living, and is a valuable assistant to her father in his labors.

UDDY, JOHN, counsellor, and President of the Black- stone Mutual Fire Insurance Company and of the Merchants' Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Providence, son of Nathaniel and Abby (Andros) Eddy, was born in East Middleboro, Massachu- setts, September 12, 1819. He is a descendant of William Eddy, Vicar of Cranbrook, in the county of Kent, Eng- land, whose sons, Samuel and John, emigrated to this country in 1629, and arrived at Plymouth in November of that year. In 1662, Samuel Eddy, in company with twenty-five others, purchased of the Indian sachem Wam- patuck a portion of the land comprised in the old town of Middleborough, and soon afterward he built one of the first houses erected there by the whites, on that portion of land which fell to him in the division, situated in the east part of the town, where some of his descendants still re- side. The Eddy family in England is in possession of the old estate from which Samuel and John emigrated in 1629. John Eddy's father was an iron manufacturer in East Middleboro, which was also his native place, and he and his brother, under the firm-name of N. & W. S. Eddy, carried on the business which their father, Joshua Eddy, established about the time of the Revolution. Mr. Eddy received his elementary education at the Bridgewater Academy, under Hon. John A. Shaw, and graduated from Brown University in 1840. Among his classmates were Governor William Gaston, Hon. Abraham Payne, Hon. George H. Brown, Hon. Edwin C. Larned, of Chicago, Rev. Ebenezer Dodge, D.D., President of Hamilton Uni- versity, and other persons who have since attained distinc- tion. After leaving college he studied law for three years in the office of his uncle, Hon. Zachariah Eddy, in Mid- dleboro, and immediately thereafter, in 1843, entered upon the practice of his profession at Mattapoisett, Massa- chusetts, where he remained for five years, and then re- moved to Providence, where he has since been engaged in his profession. Although his law business has not been confined to any special branch, a considerable portion of his practice has consisted of insurance cases, in which

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 98

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