Kent County, Rhode Island Biographies

Kent County Biographies

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CARROLL, Hugh Joseph, attorney-at-law, was born in Lippitt, one of the villages of the town of Warwick, R. I., October 29, 1854, the son of Hugh Carroll and Ann (McElhaney) Carroll. His parents came from County Monayhan, Ireland. He was edu-cated in the public school at Phenix, near by, and pre-pared for college by Rev. John A. Couch, Catholic pastor of that place and an old time classical scholar. He received his college training at Niagara, N. Y., University and at St. Laurent’s College, near Mon-treal, P. Q. He studied law with Attorney-General Willard Sayles and his partner, Judge Wm. H. Greene, and was admitted to the bar August 27,1877. in 1883 he located in Pawtucket where he has since resided. When he attained his majority Mr. Carroll entered heartily into politics as a Democrat, his chief object being the abolition of the property qualification, then a requisite for voting in Rhode Island, for naturalized citizens of all kinds, but now repealed. Since then he has served his city in the General Assembly several terms and has been Mayor twice. During his last term of office in 1890 occurred the centen-nial of the founding of the cotton industry in the United States by Samuel Slater. Mr. Carroll obtained a large appropriation from the General Assembly, which with a similar amount appropriated by the city, enabled Pawtucket to have a week’s exhibition which extended the reputation of that busy city through-out the mechanical and manufacturing world ; Rev. Edward Everett Hale assisted at the celebration and took a most lively interest in it. As Mr. Carroll’s people were of the hardy, working peasant class of Ireland, he has always been active in Irish national and laboring matters. He introduced the present ten-hour law for the state, and has always tried to settle any differences between capital and labor, and has succeeded whenever his advice prevailed among strikers. He takes pride in the development of Pawtucket, and is always active in promoting its interests. In 1880 he married Sarah M., daughter of James and Alice Washerton of Phenix, R. I; they have a family of four children.

Source: Rhode Island Men in Progress - Submitted by Marie Miller
COOPER, Robert Wright, manufacturer, is a native of Manchester, England, born September 2, 1844, son of Francis A. and Maria (Wright) Cooper.His paternal grandfather, Francis Cooper, came from Ripon, Yorkshire, England, where his fore-fathers lived for many generations. On the maternal side, his grandfather, Robert Wright, was a Manchester merchant, originally from Coventry, Warwickshire, England. His early education was acquired in private schools, principally Alms Hill Academy at Cheetham Hill, Manchester. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a large dry-goods firm in Manchester, where from the first his ambition to “ get on “ was manifested by diligence, punctuality—never being known to be late — and by paying very close attention to business. When seventeen years of age he commenced taking short trips as a commercial traveler, and at nineteen he made his first journey to New York. After several years of hard struggle he succeeded in working up a valuable connection with leading firms in the largest American cities, in English full-fashioned hosiery, representing manufacturers of Nottingham, England, with whom he was associated, first as traveling salesman, later as partner, and finally establishing his own firm of R. W. Cooper & Co.He continued his American trips for twenty-one years, crossing the ocean about one hundred times, and traveling an average of nearly twenty-five thousand miles a year, without ever meeting with an accident. About the year 1880 he began to lose his trade, the German manufacturers coming into the market with the same class of goods, but made by their cheap “ pauper” labor, paying wages about one-third what he was paying in England, thus enabling them to undersell him in the American market. After several years of ineffectual struggling to meet the conditions arising from this German com-petition, he found that to save himself from ruin he must choose one of two things — move to Germany to secure the advantage of cheap labor, or move to America and get the benefit of the protective tariff. He decided upon the latter. With the aid of New York friends he removed his machinery and skilled work-people to this country, arriving with them December 24, 1884, in the village of Thornton, R. I., where a mill and cottages had been especially built for them by Charles Fletcher of Providence. They succeeded in making exactly similar goods in their new home to those they had made for so many years in England, hence the appropriate change in the firm name to British Hosier Company, which was incorporated under Rhode Island state laws in 1885. The industry thus brought here was entirely new in this country, and in their specialty—full-fashioned cashmere hosiery— they are still (1895) alone in it. The business has grown to four times the size of eleven years ago. When they came to Thorn-ton they found about two hundred inhabitants; now the village contains about fifteen hundred prosperous and contented people, some of the most thrifty living in houses of their own. They have two churches, large public school, city water, macadamized roads and electric cars from Olneyville. Nearly all Mr. Cooper’s people, with himself, have become American citizens. He has never held public office in this country, outside of the different societies in his village, as he is too busy a man in his private affairs, which after all may be termed public in a measure, inasmuch as upon their successful conduct the welfare and prosperity of a large and growing community. In England he was prominent in church and temperance work, holding office as Deacon in the church and as Vice-President in temperance societies in Nottingham. In politics he is not active, but is an adherent of the Republican party. His elder son, Oliver W., in his twenty-second year, is learning the business with him; his other son Augustus, is at school in Europe.

Source: Rhode Island Men in Progress - Submitted by Marie Miller