Trails to the Past

Kent County, Rhode Island Biographies

Personal Paragraphs of Warwick

C - E

Source: The History of Washington & Kent Counties
Written by J. R. Cole published in 1889 by W. W. Preston & Co.

Ezra J. Cady was born here in 1813 and died in 1885. He was quite largely engaged in the manufacture of chemicals used in calico printing, a business in which his scientific knowledge yielded handsome financial results. He served three years in the town council and was three times member of the general assembly. He was president of the savings bank from 1870 and of the national bank from 1879 until his death. He left seven children, of whom four daughters and two sons survive. His son, who bears his name, was born in 1850 and continues at the homestead the mixed farming which was a part of his father's business, and is also manufacturing pyroligneous acid, a product from distilled birch wood used in calico printing.

Shubael Cady is a son of David and Catherine Lippitt Cady. He was born in 1821. His father was a son of Jonathan Cady. His mother was a daughter of Moses Lippitt "of the mill," who formerly owned the Cady place and had a tide mill at Mill Cove. Mr. Cady is now proprietor of Cady's Hotel at River View for summer boarders, a popular summer resort, accommodating sixty guests. He is also station agent at River View for the Warwick and Oakland Beach railroad. His wife was Abbie Ann Hanes. Their children are: Christopher A., Catherine L. (Mrs. Joseph C. Whitney) and Ellen L., now Mrs. Isaac N. Arnold.

Henry Capron was born in East Greenwich in 1822. His father, William, was a son of Edward Capron, who was the grandfather of James A. Capron, of East Greenwich. He began life as a mill operative. From 1865 to 1880 he was in business at Apponaug, first as a grocer, then in a lumber, fuel and feed business. Since 1883 he has lived retired at Centreville. His wife, lately deceased, was a daughter of Asa Matteson, of West Greenwich.

Stephen E. Card is a native of Exeter, from which town his father, Robert, a son of Bowen Card, removed to North Kingstown, where Stephen E. lived until 1849, when he came to Phenix and began a business as dealer in coal and wood, doing teaming and livery business as now. His wife is a sister of Thomas R. Parker. They have one daughter, Mrs. Raymond R. Whipple.

Clarence O. Carpenter, son of George B., and grandson of Joshua Carpenter, was born in Pontiac in 1856. His mother was a daughter of Joshua Noyes, of North Kingstown, where Joshua Carpenter resided. Mr. Carpenter was elected a member of the school committee six years ago, and is still a member. He was also elected tax assessor in 1887 and 1888. His wife, Harriet A., is a daughter of Lafayette Nicholas. She is well known as a successful teacher. The Carpenter farm is on the plains east of Apponaug. The business is carried on as Carpenter Brothers.

John Carpenter is a son of Curnel Carpenter, whose father, Curnel, was a son of John Carpenter, of. East Greenwich. He was a lumber dealer at Mystic, Conn., after 1850. Since 1869 he has carried on a sash and blind manufactory at Providence. Mr. Carpenter at one time built a planing mill in Georgia, which he afterward sold. He built the Carpenter Dock, south of Apponaug, in 1887-88. His wife was Huldah Blanchard.of Coventry. Their children are : Mindia (Mrs. Charles H. Johnson), John H., of Providence; Ella M. (Mrs. Nelson E. Harris), Mary E., and Jesse.

Michael Carroll was born in the north of Ireland in 1806. He came to River Point in 1834, when this part of Warwick was unimproved, and there were but two mills north of Centreville. He worked for Greene & Pike in the bleachery for twenty years. Since then he has lived at his place at River Point, which was the second house built at Birch Hill. He was married in Ireland. He raised nine children, six of whom are living, five of them near here. In 1838 Mr. Carroll brought to Warwick the first Catholic priest who was ever in the town. Mass was said in his house at Clyde before any Catholic church was erected in Warwick.

Isaac F. Chase was born in Harwick, Cape Cod, in 1832. He is a descendant of William Chase, who settled at Cape Cod in 1630. When he was but twelve years of age he went to sea, and followed the sea until he was twenty-three years old. In 1856 he went to Natick, where he worked in a mill as boss weaver. From 1861 to 1876 he was overseer in the Arctic Mill. In 1883 he began his present business at Arctic, where he carries on a book and job printing office and stationery store. His wife was Fannie N. Thornton, a great-granddaughter of John Thornton, who lived in Johnston, R. I. Their family consisted of three children, two of whom are living, Eugene F. and Isaac F. Chase, Jr. The other son, Henry H., died when he was twenty-three years old.

William Clapp was born in Warwick in 1786 and died in 1873. He was a son of Silas, son of John, son of John, son of John, son of Doctor George Gilson Clapp, who came to New York from England. Mr. Clapp was clerk in different stores in Rhode Island for about thirty years. He built the house where Mrs. Clapp now lives in 1852. Mr. Clapp and Mary Reynolds were married in 1820. She was born in 1797 in Warwick. They had one son who died in infancy.

Waterman Clapp was a son of John and grandson of Silas, who came from New York to Block Island and then to Warwick. He was a son of John, he a son of John, he a son of John, and he a son of Doctor George Gilson Clapp, who came to New York from England. Silas Clapp married Mary Greene, who inherited the homestead of her father, which has been in the Clapp family ever since. Mary and Marcy Clapp, daughters of Waterman, have much furniture and many dishes which belonged to Mary (Greene) Clapp. The house in which they now live was built by John Greene, father of Mrs. Silas Clapp.

George W. Cole was born in 1834. His father was William H., son of William Cole. His wife is Mercy, a daughter of Thomas S. and granddaughter of Ephraim Smith Northup, of South Kingstown, who was a soldier in the war of 1812. Their children are : Almy F. (a dressmaker), Mary Elta (a teacher), Minnie Ola (telegraph operator), and Florence N.

John H. Collingwood was born in England in 1889. At ten years of age he came with his parents to Providence. He learned enameling and began a business for himself in 1858. In 1871 he bought a valuable farm at Hillsgrove, where he has since carried on stock raising quite extensively, while continuing his business in Providence. In 1875 he was elected to the state legislature from Warwick, and in 1880 he was elected high sheriff of Kent county, which office he held six years. He was one of the charter members of Perseverance Lodge, I. O. O. F., at Apponaug, and has been seven years district deputy. His wife was a Miss Perry. They have one daughter.

A. W. Colvin was born in Phenix September 17th, 1831. His father, Benjamin Colvin, a farmer, was a son of Nathan Colvin. Mr. Colvin studied dentistry with Doctor Ira Ingraham of Providence, prior to 1857. He located at Phenix in 1858, where he is still practicing. He has filled the offices of constable, deputy sheriff and notary public. He has done and is still doing a considerable business in collecting for private individuals and firms in this community. His first wife, Hannah, was a daughter of Hiram Burlingame of Coventry. The present Mrs. Colvin is Harriet C, sister of Benjamin W. Burlingame.

William Colvin, a farmer on Warwick Plains, was born in 1821 in Cranston, where his father, George Colvin, was a farmer. Until thirty-seven years of age William Colvin worked as a farm hand, when he bought the farm where he now resides. His first wife, Nancy Tillinghast, died, leaving two sons, Thomas W. and Loren D. Colvin. His present wife was Margaret S. Hughes. They have one daughter, Betsey S., now Mrs. Thomas Leonard, who has one son, Irving Leonard.

John C. Conley was born in Ireland in 1839. He has resided in Phenix since 1852. When a boy his home was in Providence. He began work in a bleachery there at $1.25 per week. He worked at the Clyde Print Works five or six years, learned weaving and run looms for a few years. He also learned the shoemaker's trade, at which he worked here and in Massachusetts some ten years. The bulk of his property has been acquired in a wholesale liquor business.

Thomas and Benjamin F. Dawley are sons of Jesse, and he a son of Shebna Dawley, and he a son of Nathan Dawley. Benjamin F. Dawley has been one of the board of assessors six years and chairman of the board two years. He is one of the school committee. Thomas W. Dawley was married in 1874 to Eliza Shippee. Their only child is a son, Jesse.

William B. Eveleth is a son of Benbridge Eveleth, who was born in New Hampshire in 1824, and died in Warwick in 1886. Benbridge Eveleth was, during the last sixteen years of his life, a resident of Warwick, where he successfully carried on dairy farming and market gardening. He had been in business in Providence prior to November, 1870, when he purchased the farm where his only son, William B. Eveleth, now lives. Mrs. Benbridge Eveleth was a Miss Boss, of one of the old families of Scituate, R.I. Their three daughters are: Georgiana (Mrs. Tracy), Martha E. (Mrs. Benjamin Allen) and Francenor (Mrs. J. N. O. Hoxsie).

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