Canonicus and Miantonomi were Sachems of the Narragansett tribe who obtained their dominance through persuasion rather than violence. They allowed Roger Williams to establish Providence on their tribal lands.
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Ms. Ackroyd was a native rhode Islander who served in the State Labor Department for thirty years before her retirement. She served as Cheif in the Division of Women and Children and Commisioner of minimum wage. She became known as the "architect of non-discriminatory employment standards for women".
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Senator Aldrich was a native of Foster who conceived and organized the present financial system of the United States. Mr. Aldrich, recognized as one of the greatest authorites on finance, served for thirty years in the U.S.
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Samuel Greene Arnold (1821-1880) is one of the two foremost historians of colonial Rhode Island. He was born into a prominent merchant family and was descended from Thomas Arnold, one of Providence’s earliest settlers. Arnold was educated by private tutors, attended private schools, graduated from Brown University in 1841, and earned a law degree from Harvard in 1845.
After extensive travels, available to a man of wealth and leisure, Arnold embarked upon the writing of a detailed and scholarly History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations covering the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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Mayor Amos Chafee Barstow (1813-1892) was one of the most accomplished and versatile men in the history of Rhode Island . A Providence native, Barstow made his fortune by the manufacture of stoves. His firm, the Barstow Stove Company, located at Point and Richmond Streets covered two and one-half acres and employed 200 workers. Barstow won the Grand Medal of Merit at the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair for the best cooking stoves and ranges.
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John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886) is generally regarded as Rhode Island’s greatest secretary of state. Although a Providence native, he was educated in Canada and New York and operated a bookstore in New York City during the late 1830s and 1840s. Surrounded by books, he turned to writing. In 1847 Bartlett published The Progress of Ethnology which was followed a year later by his famous Dictionary of Americanisms.
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Mr. Benjamin was second in command of the RI State Police as Major and Executive Officer. Enlisted in 1958, he moved to the detective division in 1965 and four years later, transferred to intelligence, where he was a member of N.E.
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Thomas W. Bicknell (1834-1925) of Barrington was one of the two outstanding historians of Rhode Island during the first half of the 20th century (Dr. Charles Carroll was the other). In 1920 he published a three-volume narrative history of the state, supplemented by three biographical volumes.
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Mr. Black of Providence was widely recognized as the State of Rhode Island’s greatest distance runner of all-time. He was a two-time National (NCAA) cross-country champion, and was named All-American in several catagories as a runner for the then Rhode Island State College, now URI. He is the only person ever to win four consecutive Intercollegiate cross-country titles.
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Bradford Boss, whose career at A.T. Cross was primarily in sales and marketing, became Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. He also served as Director of the Industrial National Bank, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, and President of the URI Fifth Quarter Club.
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Governor Augustus O. Bourn (1834-1925) was born in Providence in 1834 to a distinguished old-line Rhode Island family whose earliest ancestor Jared Bourn served as a Portsmouth representative to the colonial assembly in 1654-55. After graduation from Brown University in 1855, Bourn joined his father in the business of manufacturing India-rubber goods.
In 1864, Bourn founded the National Rubber Company in Bristol which had a workforce of over 1100 within twenty years of its establishment and became, by far, Bristol’s largest industry.
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Mr. Brown was one of the foremost proponants of organized labor in the State. He was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the RI AFL, and later was a key negotiator in the merger of the AFL with CIO, He served on the State Board of Education and later the Board of Regents for twenty-eight years, being elected Chairman in 1964. He served a miriad of causes in Rhode Island and received honary degrees from URI and Bryant, and was honored witht the United Way's National Beirne Award in 1981.
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Mr. Brown served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air. He was a senior fellow at Brown University, and a Director of the Smithsonian Institute. He also directed the search and recovery of the works of art stolen by the Nazis, for which he was decorated by the French and Belgian governments.
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Tristam Burges, in the estimation of his contemporaries, was one of the most able Rhode
Island attorneys of his era. Born in Rochester, Massachusetts in 1770, Burges briefly studied medicine and then enrolled at Brown, where he became valedictorian of the class of 1796. Changing his focus to law, he was admitted to the bar in 1799 and soon became an accomplished attorney and a leader of the Federalist party. Burges became a state representative in 1811 and chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme court for a one-year term in 1815.
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James Burrill, Jr., a brilliant leader of the early nineteenth-century bar, a noted orator, and
a pioneering constitutional reformer, was born in Providence and graduated from Brown University. After legal clerkships, first in the office of Senator Theodore Foster and then under the tutelage of Congressman David Howell, he became state attorney general in 1797 at the age of twenty-five and served in that elective post until 1813, when he was chosen a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. Within a year he was elevated to the position of Speaker (1814-1816), after which he was made chief justice for a year at a time when such appointments were made by the General Assembly on an annual basis.
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Mr. Chatterton was a former president of the R.I. Golf Association.
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Dr. Clarke was a physician, Baptist clergyman, and Statesman. As the Colony’s agent in England he secured a liberal charter for Rhode Island in 1663 from King Charles II. He became one of Rhode Island’s foremost advocates in the separation of Church and State.
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Mr. Coddington was the founder of Portsmouth and Newport, and three-time Governor of Rhode Island. He was a shrewd politician and merchant, and had a large Newport Estate on which he bred livestock.
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LeBaron Bradford Colt (1846-1924) was born in Dedham, Massachusetts to Christopher and Theodora (DeWolf) Colt. He and his equally famous brother, Samuel, had very influential forebears. On their maternal side, they were the grandsons of General George DeWolf of Bristol and the grandnephews of U.S.
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Kathleen Sullivan Connell was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the only daughter of Lawrence and Margaret Sullivan. She attended St. Mary’s School and St. Catherine Academy, graduated magna cum laude from Salve Regina University with a BS in Nursing, and then earned a master’s degree in International Relations from Salve.
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Mr. Corcoran, formerly of Pawtucket, was a brilliant attorney nicknamed "Tommy the Cork", and a close companion to Oliver Wendell Holmes. He later became one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s most trusted advisors, and a high level official for the powerful Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
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Samuel Cranston (1659-1727) was governor of Rhode Island for almost twenty-nine years--1698-1727--a tenure not only longer than any Rhode Island governor but also exceeding the tenure of any other chief executive of an American colony or state.
Cranston was the son of John Cranston of Scottish ancestry who was also a Rhode Island governor (1678-1680). His mother Mary Clarke was the daughter of Governor Jeremy Clarke (1648-1649) and the sister of Governor Walter Clarke (1676-1677, 1686, 1696-1698), so Samuel was well-schooled in the art of politics and the beneficiary of his family’s high social standing. His first wife, Mary Williams Hart, the granddaughter of Roger Williams, bore him seven children.
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Mr. Curtis was an essayist and lecturer who became editor of Harper's Magazine. A co-founder of the Republican Party, he led the movement for civic service reform.
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Mr. Dexter was one of London’s finest printers. He became the printer for Roger Williams. He also served the State during several crises and was elected President of the Colony.
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Mr. Dimartino served as Chairman of the Rhode Island Water Resources Board and President of the Narragansett Preservation and Improvement Association. He was responsible for the construction of many bridges over route 95 and for the Washington Bridge. He actively engaged in Brown University alumni activities for many years, and was a native of Toulon, France.
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Mr. Dorr was known as Rhode Island's greatest political and constitional reformer, and the principle draftsman of the People's Constitution in 1841. He became Governor of Rhode Island in 1842 on the People's Party ticket, and was the leader of the famous Dorr Rebellion.
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Silas Downer (1729-1785) patriot and lawyer, was born in Norwich, Connecticut to a farm family that subsequently moved to Sunderland Massachusetts, near Deerfield, where Downer got his early schooling. He entered Harvard College at age fourteen and earned an undergraduate degree and a master of arts by age twenty-one. After graduation in 1750, Downer came to Rhode Island to apply his remarkable talent in calligraphy as a scrivener, or professional penman, copyist, letter-writer, and public notary. As one of the very few highly educated men in the colony at that time, he soon entered into the practice of law.
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Mayor Thomas A. Doyle (1827-1886), an independent-minded Republican of Irish Protestant stock, is regarded by historians as Providence’s greatest mayor. He was born in Providence as one of seven children, including a sister, Sarah, who became a noted educator and advocate for women’s rights.
After attending public school, Doyle gained employment as a clerk for several companies and then became a stockbroker and real estate auctioneer.
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Governor Elisha Dyer (1811-1890) and Governor Elisher Dyer, Jr. (1839-1909) traced their illustrious ancestry to William and Mary Dyer of Boston who settled Portsmouth in 1638 as exiled disciples of Anne Hutchinson. They eventually embraced Quakerism, and Mary repeatedly returned to Boston to preach the new doctrine in defiance of the Puritan magistrates. Such persistence earned her martyrdom.
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Susan L. Farmer joins her forebears, Bishop Alexander Griswold and Anne Hutchinson as an inductee into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. Like Hutchinson, a pioneer in many areas, including the advancement of women, Susan was a “first” as well. When elected Secretary of State in 1982, she became the first woman elected in Rhode Island to a statewide office.
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John J. Fitzgerald (1871-1926) was born in Pawtucket where he attended local public schools. A brilliant student, he was one of the state’s first Irish-Catholics to graduate from Brown University (Class of 1893). Fitzgerald earned a law degree at Georgetown University, established a hometown law practice, and in 1899 ran successfully for state representative.
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Theodore Foster was born in Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1752, the son of Jedediah Foster, a judge of the Superior Court, and Dorothy Dwight of Dedham a descendant of William Pyncheon, an original incorporator of the Massachusetts Bay Company. As a young man Foster came to Providence to study at Rhode Island College (now Brown University) and graduated in 1770. In 1771 the socially-prominent youth married equally prominent Lydia Fenner, sister of Arthur Fenner, Jr., afterwards governor of Rhode Island.
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Mr. Gallogly, a native of providence, was a former Officer in the U.S. Navy, a State Senator, Luitenent Governor, United States Attorney, and Chief Judge of the Rhode Island Family Court.
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Governor Garrahy came from Narragansett and served four terms as Governor of the State, follwing a distinguished career in public service which began in 1962. One of Rhode Island's most popular leaders, he returned to the private sector in 1985, seving as a highlky successful business executive and well known Visiting Professor at Providence College.
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Lucius Fayette Clark Garvin’s life was one of compassion, political struggle, tragedy and
service to all. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee on November 21, 1841 to educated parents, his father, James, died when Lucius was only four and his mother, Sarah, a school teacher moved to Greensboro, North Carolina where she remarried and bore two more children.
Lucius was attending Amherst College in Massachusetts when the Civil War broke out. Upon graduation he enlisted in Company E, 51st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.
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George Washington Greene (1811-1883), prominent educator and author, was born in East Greenwich and was the grandson of Nathanael Greene, the great Revolutionary War general.
As a young man, Greene traveled extensively in Europe gaining proficiency in the Italian and French languages. His first wife was Italian and he served as U.S.
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Lloyd Griffin died on November 24, 1999, at the age of fifty nine. His memorial Mass on December 1 at Holy Rosary Church in his native Fox Point was well attended for an ordinary man; but Lloyd was not an ordinary man, and the church was far from over flowing. A few black community leaders were present- notably Cliff Montiero, Mike Van Leesten, and John Rollins--but white politicians were few. The only politico of stature was Fred Lippitt, with whom Lloyd had allied in the hotly contested Providence mayoral election of 1990.
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John Milton Hay (1838-1905) was an Illinois native with deep Rhode Island roots that prompted him to select Brown as his college. Providence was the early home of his mother, Helen Leonard, whose father, Rev. David Leonard was in the Brown Class of 1792. At Brown, Hay was described as having “a retentive memory, a vivid imagination, and an ability to get along with the ladies.
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Mr. Healey, of Cranston, RI, became Senior Associate Justice of the Rhode Island Family Court and an internationally recognized authority on juvenile justice and delinquency prevention. He served on several advisory commissions for Presidents of the United States, and is a prominant jurist, professor, and consultant to variuos nations and states.
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James H. Higgins [1876-1927] became the first Irish-Catholic governor of Rhode Island, serving from 1907 to 1909.
Although orphaned at a young age, Higgins pursued a high school degree in Pawtucket and was accepted at Brown University in 1894 at a time when few Irish-Catholics matriculated at the Ivy League institution. Brown president Benjamin Andrews, a Protestant minister, paid Higgins’ tuition from his own pocket because of the young man’s talent and academic potential.
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Mr. Hopkins was Governor of Rhode Island for ten years and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Historians rate him as "one of the most illustriuos citizens Rhode Island has ever produced.
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Congressman Thomas Allen Jenckes (1818-1875) is regarded nationally as “the father of civil service reform.” He was born in Cumberland, was educated in the public schools of that town, and graduated from Brown University in 1838 where he distinguished himself in mathematics and the physical sciences.
Jenckes studied law under Samuel Y. Atwell and was admitted to the bar in 1840.
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Mr. Joslin was Associate Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and past Chairman of the Executive Commitee of the American Bar Association for Rhode Island. He became Trustee, Vice Chancellor, and fellow of the Brown Corporation.
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Mrs. Knight was a Newport native who was Director of Passport Service. An independant who ran her own show through many presidential administrations, Mrs. Knight transformed an inefficient federal agency into a model of efficiency.
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