Trails to the Past

Bristol County Rhode Island

Men of Progress of Rhode Island and Providence Part 3
Source:  Boston New England Magazine 1896

BOSWORTH, Benjamin Miller, Justice of the District Court of the Fifth Judicial District, was born in Warren, R. I., January 17, 1848, and has resided there continuously since. His father was Benjamin Miller Bosworth, son of Peleg Bosworth, and his mother was Elizabeth Luther, daughter of Martin Luther. His ancestry on both sides is Colonial and Revolutionary. His early education was obtained in the public schools of Warren. He prepared for college at the Warren High School, but did not enter, pursuing his studies instead with Isaac F. Cady, and teaching school for two years.  He studied law with Judge Richard Ward Greene and later with Thomas C. Greene, Esq., in the meantime teaching evening school, was admitted to practice law before the state courts in Rhode Island, in August 1873, at East Greenwich, and subsequently was admitted to practice in the United States courts. He commenced his legal career in Providence, and since his admission to the bar has been engaged in active practice. He was Trial Justice of Warren from 1874 to 1876, Assistant Attorney General from May 1882 to March 1895, and has been Justice of the District Court of the Fifth Judicial District since 1886. Judge Bosworth has also served the public in various other official capacities.   He was a Representative from Warren in the General Assembly of the State from May 1880 to October 1882, and again in 1885 and 1886; a member of the School Committee of Warren for more than twenty years, acting as Chairman and Superintendent for five years; delegate from Rhode Island to the Republican National Convention in Chicago which nominated President Harrison in 1888; was Town Solicitor of Lincoln from 1891 to 1895, and upon the establishment of the city of Central Falls, became and now is City Solicitor. He has been actively interested in military affairs, serving as Judge Advocate of brigade on the staffs of Gen. Thomas W. Chace and Gen. Elisha H.  Rhodes, and as Adjutant, Captain and Colonel of the Warren Artillery. He is a member of Washington Lodge No. 3, F. A. M., of Warren, twice serving as Master; of Temple Chapter and Webb Council, of Warren, having occupied the highest office in both bodies; and of Calvary Commandery Knights Templar, Providence. He is also a member of Union Club of Warren, the Rhode Island Business Men's Association of Providence, the Providence Athletic Association, and the George Hail Free Library, of which last named institution he is one of the original corporate members, and has been since 1873 its President. In politics he is a Republican, and active in town and state affairs.  Judge Bosworth has been especially active in all matters pertaining to the improvement of his native town, - the introduction of water and electricity, macadamized streets, etc., and the erection of public buildings, being chairman of the building committees of the beautiful granite Library Building and the Town Building recently erected in Warren.  He is also active in business affairs, being a director in the Warren Trust Company, the Warren Gaslight Company and the Bristol and Warren Water Works.  He was married, March 17, 1875, to Miss Mary M. Cole of Warren ; they have no children.

BOURN, Augustus Osborn, Governor of Rhode Island in 1883-85, was born in Providence, October 1, 1834, son of George O. and Hudah B. (Eddy) Bourn. He is descended in direct line from Jared Bourn, who came to this country from England about 1630, removed from Boston to Portsmouth, R. I., and in 1654-55 was a deputy from that town in the Colonial Legislature; at the time of King Philip's War he had a garrison house on what is now Gardner's Neck, in Swansea, Mass., in which the settlers from the neighborhood took refuge. In other ancestral lines he is descended on the paternal side from the Bowens, Braytons, Wheatons, Carpenters, Chases, Shermans, Tripps, Paines, Sterns, Gibsons, Bcckets, Blys, Gotts and other prominent colonial families, and on the maternal side from the Eddys, Ides, Blandings, Coopers, Walkers, Peckhams, Greenes, Clarkes, Weedens and others.  Among them were Francis Brayton, one of the founders of Portsmouth, R. I.; Robert Wheaton, Richard Bowen, Nicholas Ide, Thomas Cooper, Jr., Philip Walker and William Blanding, among the original settlers of Rehoboth, Mass.; Samuel Eddy, one of the early settlers of Plymouth, and the son of Rev. William Eddy, Vicar of St. Dunstan's, Cranbrook, Kent, England ; William Chase, the ancestor in this country of the well-known Chase family; Philip Sherman, Anthony Paine, John Peckham, James Weeden, John Greene, Jeremiah Clarke and John Tripp, among the founders of Portsmouth and Newport, R. I., and well-known as very prominent citizens of their time; and Charles Sterns, John Gibson, John Becket, John Bly and Charles Gott, among the earliest settlers of Massachusetts Bay, Charles Gott being the first deacon of the church in Salem. Augustus O. Bourn received his early education in the public schools of Providence, passing through the various grades from the primary to the High School, and entered Brown University in 1851, graduating in 1855 with the degree of Master of Arts.  Immediately after leaving college he went into business with his father, who was one of the firm of Bourn, Brown & Chaffee, Providence, manufacturers of rubber shoes, and, with the exception of some six years spent in Europe, he has been engaged in that business continuously ever since. He is now manufacturing rubber shoes in Providence as sole proprietor of a large establishment at Nos. 53 to 63 Westfield Street. He was Senator for Bristol in the Rhode Island legislature from 1876 to 1883.  During his first term he was a member of the Committee on Finance, and for the remaining five years was its Chairman, and also a member of the Committee on the Judiciary. In 1883 he was elected Governor and served two successive terms as chief executive of the State. He was also Senator for Bristol from 1886 to 1888, but was excused from serving on any regular committees during that time.  In 1889 he was appointed Consul-General of the United States for Italy, at Rome, which position he held until 1893. Governor Bourn has traveled extensively abroad, in Cuba, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy and Morocco, and is well versed in the French, German, Italian and Spanish languages. He was the author of the " Bourn Amendment" to the Constitution of Rhode Island, which granted to foreign-born citizens the right to vote on the same terms as those who are native born; he introduced the Act into the Senate, and was chairman of the Joint Special Committee to which the Act and others to the same or similar effect were referred. In politics he is a Republican, but was elected Senator the first four or five terms without opposition. He was for a long time interested in military matters, having joined the Providence Horse Guards about 1861, and held every position from private to major, and served as Lieutenant Colonel in the Battalion of Rhode Island Cavalry. He is a member of numerous clubs and societies, among others the Phi Beta Kappa of Brown University, What Cheer Lodge of Masons, and Calvary Commandery of Knights Templar. Governor Bourn was married, February 24, 1863, to Miss Elizabeth Roberts Morrill, daughter of David C. and Mary (Wentworth) Morrill, of Epping, N. H.  Both the Morrill and Wentworth families have been, from the beginning, very prominent in the history of New Hampshire, and also of Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts. They have four children: Augustus O., Jr., born May 7, 1865, educated at Providence in the University Grammar School and Brown University, studied law at Harvard Law School   and Columbian University, Washington, D. C, from which latter he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and is now practicing his profession at Denver, Col.; Stephen Wentworth, born April 5, 1877, now in Brown University; Elizabeth R. and Alice M. W. Bourn, the former studying music in Vienna, and the latter living at home with her parents at Bristol, Rhode Island.

NEYLAN, Daniel James, M. D , Bristol, was born in New York city, November 27, 1852, son of James and Mary Neylan. He received his early education in the common schools, and entered the University of New York, from which he graduated in 1885. He was a teacher of gymnastics for several years, an acrobat and professional gymnast for fifteen years and an animal trainer four years, with the John Robinson show, the Great Eastern, Stone & Murray's, Starr & Orion's, and several minstrel and variety shows.   Dr. Neylan served as Surgeon in the Rhode Island Militia in 1888-89.  He is a Thirty-second degree Mason, is Past Regent in the Royal Arcanum, Past Master Workman of the Ancient Order United Workmen and is a member of the Knights of Pythias. He was married, July 5, 1880, to Miss Elizabeth Baxter of Providence.

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