Inductees in Founders of Rhode Island

William Barton (1748-1831)
Inducted in 1999

Mr. Barton, of Warren and Providence, was a colonel in the Revolutionary army whose most notable exploit was to lead a daring raid in July, 1777 to seize General Richard Prescott, commander of the British forces occupying Aquidneck Island. Barton was born in the town of Warren. After receiving a common school education, he embarked on the trade of hat-making and moved to Providence where he acquired the lot upon which the Fleet Bank Building now stands. Read more >
Rev. William Blackstone
Inducted in 1995

Reverend Blackstone, who lived in the Valley Falls Area of the Blackstone Valley, was the first European settler in the present RI State boundaries. The Blackstone River, various parks, and a town are all named in his honor. Thoroughfares and businesses deleloped in thisValley that he helped to make famous, later becoming known as the birthplace of American Industry. He is credited with developing the first variety of American apples. Read more >
Senator William Bradford (1729-1808)
Inducted in 2007

Senator William Bradford (1729-1808) was a fifth-generation descendant and namesake of the famous governor of Plymouth Colony. He began his career as a surgeon, but after his arrival in Bristol in the late 1750s he served the town as state representative and town moderator. Bradford was speaker of the House of Representative for 18 non-consecutive terms, a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, and lieutenant governor from 1775 to 1778.

Bradford was a leading supporter of ratification of the federal Constitution and served as U. Read more >
James Burrill, Jr. (1772-1820)
Inducted in 2000

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. Read more >
Dr. John Clarke (1609-1676)
Inducted in 1997

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. Read more >
William Coddington (1601-1678)
Inducted in 1997

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. Read more >
Gov. Samuel Cranston (1659-1727)
Inducted in 1998

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. Read more >
Ebenezer Knight Dexter (1773-1824)
Inducted in 2000

Ebenzer Knight Dexter was a wealthy Providence merchant and a United States marshal
who became Providence’s leading benefactor of the poor. In 1824, by the terms of his will, he bequeathed more than 2,275,000 square feet, or over 52 acres, of land to the town. The largest tract, located off Hope Street, was given for use as a poor farm. An almshouse for paupers, called Dexter Asylum, was built there in 1830 from the designs of architect John Holden Greene. Read more >
Nehemiah Dodge (1775-1856)
Inducted in 1965

Mr. Dodge was a pionering Rhode Island industrialist whose craft was that of "manufacturing jeweler". He is generally regarded as the principle founder of Rhode Island's jewelry industry. His most famous apprentice was Jabez Gorham (1792 - 1869), founder of the internationally renowned Gorham Manufacturing Company. Read more >
Silas Downer (1729-1785)
Inducted in 1998

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. Read more >
George T. Downing (1819-1903)
Inducted in 2003

George T. Downing, abolitionist, businessman, and civil rights advocate, was born in New York City on December 30, 1819 into a prominent, well-to-do African-American family. His father Thomas Downing was a restauranteur, whose Oyster House was a gathering place for New York’s aristocracy and politicians. Under his father’s guidance, young George participated in the Underground Railroad and lobbied to gain equal suffrage for blacks. Read more >
Dr.Solomon Drowne (1753-1834)
Inducted in 2000

Dr. Solomon Drowne and Senator Theodore Foster (1752-1828), friends from their
student days at Brown, collaborated in a fascinating way to shape the early history of the town of Foster. Set off from Scituate in 1781 and named for Theodore Foster, this western Rhode Island community became the home of both men when physician Drowne returned to Rhode Island from his far-flung travels in 1801 and Foster left the United States Senate in 1803. Both men had long talked of establishing themselves in a setting conducive to contemplating and pursuing their respective professional interests in an idyllic rural retreat. Read more >
Mary Dyer (1611-1660)
Inducted in 1997

Ms. Dyer was a Quaker Missionary and martyr. She moved to Rhode Island in 1638 and became one of the founders of Portsmouth. She ultimately returned to Boston where she was hanged for supporting the Quakers. Read more >
Governors Elisha & Elisha Jr. Dyer
Inducted in 2007

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. Read more >
William Ellery (1727-1820)
Inducted in 1999

merchant, politician, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the William was the son of William Ellery, a prominent merchant, and Elizabeth Almy. His well-to-do father sent him to Harvard from which young William graduated in 1747. He then embarked upon a mercantile career, but when his father's death in 1764 left him with a considerable inheritance, Ellery began to engage actively in politics as an ally of Governor Samuel Ward. He was an early supporter of the protest movement against England and joined the Newport Sons of Liberty in the mid-1760s. Read more >
Theodore Foster (1752-1828)
Inducted in 2000

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. Read more >
Samuel Gorton
Inducted in 1973

Mr. Gorton was a colonial leader who was the first settler of Warwick, RI. He inspired the development of a religious sect called the Gortonists.
. Read more >
Stephen Hopkins
Inducted in 1973

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. Read more >
Henry Marchant (1741-1796)
Inducted in 1999

Marchant, from Newport and South Kingstown, was a well-educated intellectual and a protege of Ezra Stiles. Marchant was born on Martha's Vineyard and attended the University of Pennsylvania where he studied law. He was an ardent Son of Liberty during the Stamp Act protest of 1765 and served as Rhode Island attorney general from 1771 to 1777. After the outbreak of the Revolution, Marchant became a Rhode Island delegate to the Continental Congress (1777-1779), and after the war he entered the General Assembly as a vigorous spokesman for the state's commercial interest (1784-1790). Read more >
Chief (Ousamequin) Massasoit (1581-1661)
Inducted in 2007

Chief Massasoit, also known as Ousamequin, (ca. 1581- 1661) was born in present-day Rhode Island. As chief sachem of the Wampanoag nation, he befriended the Pilgrims at Plymouth, taught them farming methods, and joined with them in a 1621 thanksgiving feast. He was a cordial host to the original Pilgrim settlers and sheltered Roger Williams during his winter exile in 1636. Read more >
Rev. Samuel Newman (1600-1663)
Inducted in 1997

Reverend Newman was a learned clergyman. He was the first prominent settler of East Providence at Rumford. He was acclaimed for his studies of the King James Bible, and he established the Newman Congregational Church. Read more >
Stephen Olney (1756-1832)
Inducted in 1999

Stephen Olney, of North Providence, was one of Rhode Island's most distinguished and longest serving officers during the War for Independence. He was a fifth generation descendant from Thomas Olney, a joint proprietor with Roger Williams in the settlement of Providence. In 1774, at the age of eighteen, Olney became a private in a newly chartered militia company called the North Providence Rangers. From that time through the siege of Yorktown in 1781, he participated heroically in numerous military campaigns rising to the rank of captain. Read more >
John Aldrich Saunders, Jr. (1808-1882)
Inducted in 2007

John Aldrich Saunders, Jr. (1808-1882) was the central figure, chronologically and symbolically, of the noted South County family of boat builders, marine entrepreneurs, and seamen. He was born in Newport, the grandson of Stephen Saunders, a shipwright, and the son of Captain John Aldrich Saunders (1786-1832), who built one of the first three-mastered schooners and discovered that the buttonwood tree provided the best wood for a ship’s keel. In all, Captain Saunders, Sr. Read more >
Samuel Slater (1768-1835)
Inducted in 1965

Mr. Slater, an English-born textile operative and inventor, has been called the "Father of American Manufacturing". He migrated to Rhode Island from Derbyshire in 1789, and, in concert with Rhode Island investors and craftsman, built and activated spinning frames at Pawtucket Falls that were modeled on those of English inventor Richard Arkwright. On December 20, 1790, he spun cotton yarn from water powered machinery for the first time in America. Read more >
Richard Smith (1596-1666)
Inducted in 1997

Mr. Smith was an entreprenuer and by far the most important early settler of South County, RI. He constructed ‘Smith’s Castle’, or Cocumscussoc in Wickford. Read more >
Gov. Samuel Ward (1725-1776)
Inducted in 1998

Samuel Ward (1725-1776) was born in Newport as one of fourteen children of Richard Ward and Mary (Tillinghast) Ward. His father, a prosperous merchant, served as governor of Rhode Island from 1740 to 1742. Young Sam was destined by his father to be a gentleman farmer. In 1745 he married Ann Ray, who would bear him five sons and six daughters, and he moved to Westerly to live on land acquired from his father-in-law. Read more >
Thomas Willett
Inducted in 1997

Mr. Willett was a Captain of the Colonial Militia. He was the principle early settler of Riverside and Barrington. As a trusted friend of the natives he bought large tracts of land from them. Read more >
Roger Williams (1603-1683)
Inducted in 1965

Mr. Williams is known as the English clergyman who was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for his teachings and, in 1636, became the founder of Providence--Rhode Island's first white settlement. William's pioneering views included religious liberty, complete separation of church and state, and fair treatment of the Native Americans. In 1643 he published "A Key into the Language of America", the first English language dictionary and ethnography of an American Indian people. Read more >

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Inductees in Founders of Rhode Island

William Barton (1748-1831)

Rev. William Blackstone

Senator William Bradford (1729-1808)

James Burrill, Jr. (1772-1820)

Dr. John Clarke (1609-1676)

William Coddington (1601-1678)

Gov. Samuel Cranston (1659-1727)

Ebenezer Knight Dexter (1773-1824)

Nehemiah Dodge (1775-1856)

Silas Downer (1729-1785)

George T. Downing (1819-1903)

Dr.Solomon Drowne (1753-1834)

Mary Dyer (1611-1660)

Governors Elisha & Elisha Jr. Dyer

William Ellery (1727-1820)

Theodore Foster (1752-1828)

Samuel Gorton

Stephen Hopkins

Henry Marchant (1741-1796)

Chief (Ousamequin) Massasoit (1581-1661)

Rev. Samuel Newman (1600-1663)

Stephen Olney (1756-1832)

John Aldrich Saunders, Jr. (1808-1882)

Samuel Slater (1768-1835)

Richard Smith (1596-1666)

Gov. Samuel Ward (1725-1776)

Thomas Willett

Roger Williams (1603-1683)

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