The history of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, V. IV, Part 96

Author: Bicknell, Thomas Williams, 1834-1925. cn
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 978

USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The history of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, V. IV > Part 96

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Sir James Coats was born in Paisley, Scotland, April 12, 1834, and died there January 20, 1913. As a young man of twenty years he came to the United States, and married in New York City in 1857. He returned to his native home, and in I8,1 again came to the United States, residing in Providence, R. I. For many years he was senior member of the firm of J. and P. Coats, of Paisley, and afterward senior director of J. & P. Coats, Ltd. Soon after J. & P. Coats became the controlling

factor in the Conant Thread Company, founded : Pawtucket, R. I., by Hezekiah Conant in 1868, and S: James Coats became the representative of the Coat interests in this large enterprise. In 1891 the Conar Thread Company was dissolved and the plant has bee subsequently operated as a branch of J. & P. Coat: Ltd. Sir James Coats was the directing spirit in th vast expansion and development of this important busi ness, which employed more than two thousand hands giving to its management the benefit of long experienc in the industry and making its weighty affairs hi greatest care. In 1901 he returned to Scotland, wher his death occurred. He was a business man of splendid parts, complete master of every branch of thread manu facture, and was held in high regard in his adopter home. He was interested in matters of public concern and public-spirited in his support of movements o progress and betterment, while many charitable insti tutions and organizations knew him as a generous sym- pathizer. Diplomatic, tactful, and a trained executive he soon familiarized himself with American method: of business procedure, and was widely known both for business sagacity and constant adherence to lofty prin- ciples. Sir James Coats was justice of the peace of the counties of Ayr and Renfrew, and was at one time captain of the Second Battalion of Renfrewshire Rifles (volunteers). He was created a baronet, Decem- ber 7, 1905.

He married Sarah Ann Auchincloss, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Buck) Auchincloss, the ceremony per- formed October 15, 1857, and they were the parents of: Elizabeth W., married Thomas Glen Arthur, deceased, of Barshaw, Renfrewshire, and is now a resident of Algiers, Algeria; Annie M., married George Gordon King, of Newport, R. I .; Alice D., deceased, married Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New York City, son of

- Frederick Frelinghuysen, a former Secretary of State of the United States; Sir Stuart A., Bart., resides in London, married Jane Muir, daughter of Thomas Greenlees, of Paisley, Renfrewshire; Alfred M., of whom further ; J. Munro, married Anne Baldwin, daugh- ter of Edward Thompson Caswell, of Providence, R. I., and resides in London, England.

Alfred M. Coats was born in Paisley, Scotland, April 12, 1869. He was brought to Rhode Island by his par- ents when a child of eighteen months, and obtained his preparatory education in St. Paul's School, at Concord, N. H., then entered Yale University. He was graduated A. B. in the class of 1891, and the following year en- tered the service of J. & P. Coats, Ltd., in the Paw- tucket plant. He learned all departments of the busi- ness, and was advanced through positions of increasing responsibility to the general managership of the plant, an important post he filled from 1902 to 1910. In the latter year he retired from active affairs, limiting his participation in business to his duties as director of the Industrial Trust Company, the Slater Trust Company, of Pawtucket, and the Lorraine Manufacturing Com- pany, and as trustee of the Pawtucket Institute for Savings, although he has wide interests. The period of the United States active participation in the World War found him giving unreservedly of all his resources, time, effort and funds, to the Allied cause. In 1917 he

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BIOGRAPHICAL

was chairman of the first Red Cross war fund cam- paign for Rhode Island, and in August of that year was appointed federal food administrator. He dis- charged the burdensome duties of this office with an efficiency that won him high commendation and secured the cooperation of the citizens of the State to such a degree that comparatively little friction arose from the beginning of his administration until the office was dis- continued, January 31, 1919. His gifts of labor, per- sonal convenience, and money, valuable as they were, were but the smallest of his contributions to the cause of victory, for he lost his only son, Lieutenant Archi- bald Coats, in the service, seventeen days before the armistice ended the conflict. Mr. Coats was appointed by Mayor Gainer a member, and became chairman, of the Providence Citizens' Committee, whose object was to aid returning soldiers and sailors in securing em- ployment and adjusting themselves to civil life. He served in this capacity until June 1, 1919, when he re- signed his office.

Mr. Coats is a member of numerous social organiza- tions, including the Squantum Association, the Agawam Hunt, Rhode Island Country, Hope, and Turk's Head clubs, and many out-of-town clubs. He is a popular member of the Providence community, and although retired from industrial and business affairs, is inti- mately concerned in all that affects his city's welfare. From 1912 to 1916 Mr. Coats resided in New York City, but since the latter year Providence has been his home and his associations extend into many channels of the city's life.

Mr. Coats married, September 4, 1895, Elizabeth, daughter of Morris Barnewall, of Flushing, Long Island. Children: Lieutenant Archibald, served with Battery D, Nineteenth Field Artillery, with the Amer- ican Expeditionary Forces, and died in the service at Toul, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France, Oct. 25, 1918; Mabel; Elizabeth.

REV. EDWARD HOLYOKE, D. D., LL. D .- There is no way by which the value of a life to a community can be estimated, and especially is this true of the life of a minister of the Gospel. When Rev. Edward Holyoke accepted a call in 1887 from Friend- ship Baptist Church, of Providence, now Calvary Bap- tist Church, the congregation numbered 267 communi- cants. The membership is now 1350, who worship in the beautiful temple dedicated in 1907. All depart- ments of the church have advanced in like degree, but these are but the tangible evidences of the value of his thirty years pastorate, and constitute but a part of the real benefit his pure life and inspiring leadership has meant to the church he has served so long and de- votedly. The spiritual advancement cannot be meas- ured or told, only the great record will ever reveal " what the life of this eloquent, devoted divine has meant to his own people and to his city. He is a grandson of William E. Holyoke, a carriage manufacturer, born in Salem, Mass., a man of influence and means, who left the Massachusetts home of his ancestors and journeyed West to the States of Ohio and Illinois, there becom- ing a supporter of educational institutions, and through his connection with Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, as

trustee, and with Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., as one of the original board of trustees, accomplished a great deal for the cause of higher education.

Samuel Greenleaf Holyoke, son of William E. Green- leaf, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1824, and died in April, 1914, at the home of his son, Edward, in Provi- dence, R. I. He was an expert pattern maker and house builder, who, from the year 1836 until 1904, was a resident of the city of Galesburg, Ill. In 1904 he came to the city of Providence, and in the home of his son, Dr. Edward Holyoke, spent the last ten years of his long and useful life, which covered a period of ninety years. Samuel G. Holyoke married, in Gales- burg, Ill., in 1846, Amanda L. Hoag, born in Oswego county, N. Y., in 1824, died in Harvey, Ill., in August, 1902.

Edward Holyoke, son of Samuel Greenleaf and Amanda L. (Hoag) Holyoke, was born in Galesburg, Ill., October 7, 1858, and until his ninth year knew no teacher but his mother. He then spent three years in the public school of Galesburg, this completing his preparation for admission to Knox Academy, passing thence to Knox College, Galesburg, whence he was grad- uated with honors, A. B., class of 1871, delivering the philosophical oration. He then took courses in theology at Hamilton Seminary, a department of Colgate Uni- versity, and was ordained a clergyman of the Baptist church, in September, 1884. In the latter year he re- ceived the degree of Master of Arts from Knox Col- lege, and the same year he accepted a call from the Baptist church of Pittsfield, Mass., this being his first pastorate, although while at Hamilton as a theological student, he had filled the pulpit at Bainbridge, N. Y. He remained at Pittsfield for three years, then, accept- ing a call from Friendship Street Baptist Church, of Providence, R. I., he came there in May, 1887. This church is now Calvary Baptist Church, but there has been no change in the pastoral head, Dr. Holyoke still remaining with the congregation to which he came thirty-one years ago, a young, enthusiastic pas- tor. Enthusiasm has given way to earnest, settled purpose and mature judgment, which render him valu- able in counsel and leadership. He is an eloquent, pleasing orator, greatly in demand, and in addition to safely guiding his own church to great heights of Christian usefulness, has labored abundantly in behalf of the church at large. A new chapel was dedicated at Calvary, in 1897, the new temple in 1907, and at no time has the spiritual or material welfare of the church faltered.

Outside of Calvary Church, Dr. Holyoke has ac- tively aided in those State movements which are a part of the history of the Baptist church. He is a past president of the Rhode Island Society of Christian Endeavor; past president of the Rhode Island Bap- tist Educational Society: member of the board of ad- ministration of both the foregoing societies for many years: president of the Rhode Island Sunday School Association; and for two terms, member of the edu- cational committee; past vice-president and secretary of the Rhode Island Federation of Churches, also chairman of the committee on Comity for several years; and chairman of the committee on Union of

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Baptist and Free Baptist denominations in Rhode Island, a committee which saw its labors crowned with success, when in 1916, the two branches of prac- tically the same faith united. He is a member of the Baptist Theological Club, has been visitor to Brown University in the philosophical department for fifteen years; and bore a still heavier share of official re- sponsibility than the foregoing indicates. In 1904, Colgate conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and in 1918, Brown University conferred the same degree.

CHARLES FREDERICK EDDY, for many years one of the most prominent business men of Rhode Island, is a direct descendant of William Eddye, of Cranbrook, County Kent, England. The Eddy family has figured prominently in the history of the early colonies and States of Rhode Island and Massachu- setts since 1630, never relinquishing the prestige and influence which came to it in the infancy of the col- onies through the distinguished service rendered by its earliest members.

William Eddye, A. M., was vicar of the Church of St. Dunstan, of the town of Cranbrook, County Kent, England. He was a native of Bristol, and received his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, England. He was vicar from 1589 to 1616. He died November 23, 1616, and was buried in the Cranbrook churchyard. He left the financial affairs of his parish in better order than before, and collected and arranged the loose registers dating back from 1588 in a new parchment book, beautifully engrossing about eighty of the pages and illuminating three title pages, one for births, one for marriages and the third for deaths. The book is still in existence at the vicarage. He married (first) November 20, 1587, Mary Foston, daughter of John Foston, who died in September, 1573. She died in July, 1611, leaving an infant son, Nathaniel, who died nine days after she died. He married (second) in 1614, Elizabeth Taylor, widow.

Samuel Eddy, son of William and Mary (Foston) Eddye, was born in May, 1608, died 1685. He was the immigrant ancestor. On August 10, 1630, with his brother, John, he left London, England, in the ship "Handmaid," Captain John Grant, arriving at Plym- outh, Mass., October 29, 1630. He settled in Plymouth, and on January I, 1632, was made freeman. On Novem- ber 7, 1637, three acres of land in Plymouth were set off to him, and in 1641 six acres of land and thirty acres of meadow were set off to him. On April 3, 1645, he sent his son John to live with Francis Gould until he should come of age. His wife was fined, Oc- tober 7, 1651, for wringing out clothes on Sunday, but later the fine was remitted. She was summoned before court, May 1, 1660, to answer for traveling on Sunday from Plymouth to Boston, and she declared that she went there on that day because of the illness of Mis- tress Saffin. She was excused, but admonished. On May 9, 1631, Samuel Eddy purchased a house at Spring Hill at the end of Main street, in Plymouth, of Experience Mitchell, and he sold it in 1645. He was one of the original purchasers of Middleboro, Mass., and owned much land in other places. In 1631 his

assessment was half that of Captain Standish, and in 1633. it was the same. He married Elizabeth who died in 1689.

Charles Frederick Eddy, of the ninth generation ol this honorable family, and son of Ferdinand S. and Amey (Dexter) Eddy, was born in Providence, R. I., February 5, 1847. He attended the public schools at North Providence, finishing the grammar courses, then at the age of fourteen years began his business career; for two years he was employed in a West- minster street mercantile house. He then supple- mented his education with a course in bookkeeping at the Bryant and Stratton Business College and then secured a bookkeeping position with Governor James Y. Smith, with whom he served for nine years. At the age of thirty, in the year 1877, Mr. Eddy entered the business world as senior member of the firm of Eddy & Street, dealers in cotton yarns; their office was located on South Water street, and for nearly a third of a century was well known throughout the tex- tile world. Mr. Eddy continued active in the business until 1909, when he retired from active business, although he still continues his office at No. 17 Ex- change street, Providence. The many years of busi- ness success brought with them a high sense of per- sonal honor that gave Mr. Eddy the respect and con- fidence of all who were associated with him. He de- veloped sound quality and ability as a business man, yet did not regard life as a mere money-making oppor- tunity, but in all departments of the city was inter- ested and helpful. Although of a quiet, unassuming nature, he has been an active factor in the commercial growth of Rhode Island. He retains his interest in the social side of life, and is a member of the Central and Pomham clubs of Providence. He keeps in touch with the business world through membership in the Chamber of Commerce, and is a member of the Cen- tral Baptist Church. In politics he is a Republican.

Charles F. Eddy married, in Providence, November 24, 1868, Louise S. Purshouse, and they are the par- ents of three children: Mrs. William B. Smith; Mrs. William C. Johnson; and Charles Summer Eddy. They have one grandchild, William R. Johnson.

Mr. Eddy, on his maternal side, is a grandson of Nathaniel Gregory Balch Dexter, of Pawtucket, R. I. Mr. Dexter was born June 25, 1788, in Grafton, Mass .; married, in November, 1808, Amey Jenckes, born in 1788, in Pawtucket, R. I., daughter of Jerahmeel Jenckes. Mr. Dexter removed with his father's fam- ily in 1797 to Pawtucket. He was educated by his par- ents and never attended school a day in his life. He early entered the counting room as a clerk to Samuel Slater, the first manufacturer of cotton yarn by ma- chinery in America. While in his employ he opened the first Sunday school in the United States, and taught it himself. The scholars were children who worked in the cotton mill. Captain Dexter (as he was familiarly called), with the exception of a short time, about 1810, when he resided in Slatersville, was a resi- dent of Pawtucket, where he had a good estate. For many years he was a manufacturer of cotton yarn on an extensive scale, and most of his sons and their sons and grandsons in turn succeeded to the business.

BIOGRAPHICAL

He was one of the main pillars of the Universalist denomination in Pawtucket. He maintained through life the reputation of an upright, prompt and energetic man in his business, and in his civil and social rela- tions he was generous, benevolent, frank, affable and kind. He was ever active in the pursuit of some- thing.

Captain Dexter died April 8, 1866. The children of Captain and Mrs. Dexter were: Jerahmeel J., born in 1809: Lucy W., born in 1811, married Wil- liam Fletcher: Nathaniel, born in 1814: James Greg- ory, born in 1817; Simon Willard, born in 1820; Dan- iel S., born in 1822; Amey, born in 1825, married Ferd- inand S. Eddy, of Providence; and Samuel Slater, born in 1827.

ARNOLD BUFFUM CHACE-Three generations of the Chace family have been the owning and managing heads of the Valley Falls Company, a cotton manufac- turing corporation of Valley Falls, R. I. The broth- ers. Harvey and Samuel B. Chace, founded the busi- ness under the firm name H. and S. B. Chace in 1839, but on the death of their father, Oliver Chace, in 1852, they incorporated with another brother, Oliver Chace, and organized the Valley Falls Company, to hold the property left them by their father. They located the plant on the Cumberland side of the Blackstone. and also purchased property on the Smithfield side. H. and S. B. Chace bought the Albion Mills, and by a division of the properties of the brothers in 1868, Samuel B. Chace became the owner of the Valley Falls property. He was succeeded by his son, Arnold Buffum Chace, the present treasurer of the Valley Falls Company. And Edward Gould Chace is associated with his father as assistant treasurer of the company.

The earlier business experiences of Harvey Chace and his brother, Samuel B. Chace, included a failure with ability to pay but 80 per cent. of their liabilities, but with the founding of the Valley Falls Company came the restorations of their fortunes, and when they had fully regained their financial equilibrium, the old debtors were hunted up and the unpaid 20 per cent. was paid in full with interest. There are other monu- ments standing to perpetuate the memory of the Chace brothers, but nothing finer than the foregoing. It was under the superintendence of Samuel B. Chace that the curved stone dam across the Blackstone river at Valley Falls was built in 1854, a substantial work which will long stand as evidence of his thoroughness as a builder. Another tribute to the memory is of a different type and offered by one of the great men of the Abolition movement of the ante-Civil War period, William Lloyd Garrison, who said in part at the funeral of Samuel B. Chace, who died December 17. 1870:

. Yet not ten but thirty-five years since one departed friend in the darkest and stormiest period of the Anti- slavery conflict gave his adhesion to the cause. From that day his door and heart were open to the pro- scribed advocates of the oppressed, and in the face of the iniquitous Fugitive Slave Law, his home was con- verted into a station house on a branch of the under- ground railroad running from New Bedford to Canada, and no efforts were wanting on his part to make it a safe retreat; what a blending of moral courage with rare gentleness of disposition.

Arnold Buffum Chace, of the eighth American gen- eration of the family founded by William Chace, who came from England with Governor Winthrop and his fleet in 1630, is a son of Samuel B. and Elizabeth (Buffum) Chace, and a grandson of Oliver and Su- sanna (Buffinton) Chace; Oliver Chace was a son of Jonathan Chace, son of Job Chace, son of Joseph Chace, son of William Chace, son of William Chace, the founder. Arnold Buffum Chace was born at Val- ley Falls, town of Cumberland, R. I., November 10, 1845, and is yet (1919) an honored business man and citizen of Providence, R. I. He began his education under private tutorage, then entered a Hopedale, Mass., boarding school, and under private teachers completed preparation for college. He entered Brown University in 1862, pursued a full classical course, and in 1866 was graduated A. B., and the year following graduation he spent in study in the chemical classes of Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, Mass. The next year following, he was a student in the chemical laboratory of the Ecole de Medicine in Paris, France. His next period of study was under Profes- sor Shaler, of the Aggariz Museum of Cambridge, Mass. These years of study indicate the passion of his life, and years have not abated his thirst for study and research, although added business responsibilities have been carried constantly since the year 1869, when he was elected treasurer of the Valley Falls Com- pany, founded and developed by his honored father and uncle. He has now held that position for over half a century. He has been a director of the Westminster Bank of Providence since 1871; its president since 1894; is president of the Providence Land and Wharf Company, vice-president and trustee of the old Colony Co-operation Bank of Providence; was for years a director of the National Bank of North America, and is a director of the Manufacturers' Mutual Fire Insur- ance Company of Providence.

The study of mathematics has been a favored one with Mr. Chace all his life, and one of his published works is a treatise upon "A Certain Class of Cubic Surfaces Treated by Quarternions," which first ap- peared in the "Journal of Mathematics." He was elected a member of the board of trustees of Brown Univer- sity in 1876, was chosen treasurer in 1882, serving until 1901, and on October 9, 1907, was elected chancellor of the University, succeeding William Goddard. He yet serves his alma mater in official capacity, and is a devoted friend of the University, from whence in 1892 he received his degree of Doctor of Science. He is a member of the Review Club, formerly the Browning Club, and is an ex-president, and has contributed many articles on mathematical problems and subjects which were read before the club. While in college he stood second in rank in his class, and all through his life he has retained that position among men of intel- lectual, scholarly tastes, his nature serious and thought- ful. His characteristics have stood the acid test of years and high position, and no man in his city is more genuinely respected and honored.

Mr. Chace married, October 24, 1871, Eliza Chace Greene, daughter of Christopher A. and Sarah A. Greene, they the parents of three sons: Arnold Buf-

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fum, Jr., Malcolm Greene, Edward Gould, and a daughter, Margaret Lily. This review deals with the cause of the youngest son, Edward Gould Chace, of the ninth American generation of this ancient and honorable family of New England, long seated in Rhode Island. Edward Gould Chace was born in Providence, October 16, 1882. After completing the courses of University Grammar School in Providence, he attended Morristown School, Morristown, N. Y., whence he was graduated in 1900. He entered Yale University in 1901, continuing until 1903, and was a student at Williams College during the years 1904 and 1905. He then selected a business course, entered the employ of the Valley Falls Company, of which his father is treasurer, as his assistant, so continuing until 1910, when he formed a connection with the Fort Dummer Mills of Brattleboro, Vt., was elected treas- urer of that corporation in 1911, a position he yet fills. In 1913 he again became assistant treasurer of the Valley Falls Company, and still retains that connec- tion. In 1918 Edward G. Chace was elected a direc- tor of the Westminster Bank of Providence, being there again a contemporary with his father. A Repub- lican in politics, Mr. Chace served as tax assessor of the town of Lincoln, R. I., during the years 1903-08, but in 1912 he joined the progressive movement, and being then in Vermont served as chairman of the Windham County Progressive Committee. He is a member of the Hope, Agawam, Rhode Island County, Yale and Alpha Delta Phi clubs, the Alpha Delta Phi Greek Letter Society, and in religious faith is a Uni- tarian.

Mr. Chace married, at Newport, R. I., October 17, 1906, Christine Macleod, daughter of Angus and Jes- sie (Mackenzie) Macleod. They are the parents of five children: Christine, born April 14, 1909; Eliza Greene, born June 20, 1913; Jessie Macaulay MacKen- zie, born Aug. 14, 1914; and Margaret Ward, born Dec. 20, 1917.

GEORGE HENRY CORLISS-The assertion is sometimes made that in spite of certain notable excep- tions, the type of mind possessed by inventive geninses is rarely capable of dealing with the commercial or business aspect of life, and we have the popular and familiar picture of the unsuspecting ingenuous inven- tor fleeced of the well-earned profit from his devices by the sophisticated and scheming business man. If this be so it is strange enough, for, to the layman at least, there seems to be no incompatibility between the mind that can grasp the highly practical problems of physical and mechanical science and the very similar problems of everyday business relations, but rather a parity such as to suggest that they are of one and the same kind. However this may be, it is certain that the remarkable group of American inventors of the generation just passed, whose achievements have given rise to the wide-spread respect for "Yankee genius," were not afflicted with any such one-sidedness of character. They, at least, were not deprived of their just deserts, and were quite equally capable of produc- ing their masterpieces of mechanical skill and of mar- keting them to their own best advantage and to that

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The history of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, V. IV, Part 96

Author: Bicknell, Thomas Williams, 1834-1925. cn Publication date: 1920 Publisher: New York, The American Historical Society Number of Pages: 978

Author: Bicknell, Thomas Williams, 1834-1925. cn
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 978