Providence County Biographies
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EAMES, Benjamin Tucker, attorney-at-law, Providence, was born in Dedham, Mass., June 4, 1818. son of James and Sarah (Mumford) Eames. His father was born in Haverhill, Mass., and his mother in Eastford, Conn. His parents in 1820 removed to Providence where they resided during life. He had the advantage of the schools of Providence. and of some of the leading academies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. At the age of sixteen he was placed in the auction rooms of Martin Stoddard & Co., where he remained for a year or two, and then as bookkeeper entered the employ of Bates & Hutchins, wholesale dry goods merchants of Providence, and subsequently the employ of Borden & Bowen, who were the agents of the Blackstone Manufacturing Company, and the financial agents of the American Print Works in Fall River, Mass. With a thorough English education, and some knowledge of mercantile and commercial pursuits, which were of service to him in after life, in the fall of 1838 he went to the Worcester Academy, and under the tuition of the late Professor S. S. Greene prepared for, and in the fall of 1839 entered, Yale College, and graduated in 1843 with a fair standing in his class. He took during his college course an special interest in the debating and literary societies connected with the college. In the vacation before graduation he entered his name as a law student in the office of the late Chief Justice Samuel Ames, with whom was then associated Rollin Mathewson, Esq. For about six months after graduation he was engaged as a teacher in the academy at North Attleboro, Mass. In the spring of 1844 he went to Cincinnati, Ohio, and entered the law office of the Hon. Bellamy Storer, where he remained until the following winter, when he was admitted to practice in the courts of Kentucky. Upon his return to Providence he was admitted in 1845 to practice in the courts of Rhode Island and in the United States courts, and since then, except when in Congress and for the past two years, he has been actively engaged in his profession in Providence. He gradually succeeded in obtaining a remunerative practice and a prominent position at the bar. From 1845 to 1850 he served as Clerk of the House of Representatives of Rhode Island, and during part of this time was the reporter of the proceedings of the General Assembly for the Providence Daily Journal. In 1854 he was elected Senator from the city of Providence to the General Assembly, and was re-elected to that office in 1855, l856. He was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1859, 1868 and 1869, serving the last year as Speaker. He was one of the commissioners on the revision in 1857 of the public laws of Rhode Island. In 1860 he was a Delegate to the Republican Convention at Chicago, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. In 1870 he was elected Representative to the Forty-second Congress from the First District of Rhode Island, and was re-elected to the Forty-third, Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses. In the Forty-second Congress he served on the committees on Elections and Revolutionary Claims and the War of 1812 ; in the Forty-third, on the Committee on Patents; in the Forty-fourth on the Committee of Banking and Currency, and in the Forty-fifth on the same committee and Expenditures in the War Department. Among his speeches in Congress that have been published for circulation are those on the presentation by the State of Rhode Island of the Statue of Roger Williams, Currency and Free Banking, Counting the Electoral Votes, Resumption of Specie Payments, Repeal of the Resumption Clause, Coinage of the Silver Dollar, Treasury Notes as a Substitute for National Bank Notes, the Tariff, and Reduction of Letter Postage. In the fall of 1878 he declined to be a candidate for re-election to Congress. He was in 1879 elected a Representative to the General Assembly from Providence. He was re-elected to that office in 1880, and in 1884 was elected Senator from Providence. Mr. Eames became identified with the Republican party at its first organization. He stood by it through the struggle for national life, and has always been a firm supporter of its principles and policy. He was married in Warwick, R. I., May 9, 1849, to Laura S. Chapin, daughter of Josiah and Asenath (Capron) Chapin: his wife died October 1, 1872. Of four children, two died in infancy; his son Waldo C, a graduate of Yale, class of 1881, died August 20, 1894; his daughter, Laura Chapin Eames, is living.
Source: Rhode Island Men in Progress - Submitted by Marie Miller
EASTMAN, James Henry, Superintendent of Rhode Island State Institutions, was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, May 31, 1842, son of Rev.Larnard L. and Lucy Ann (Currier) Eastman. Receiving his early education in the district schools, he graduated at the New Hampshire Conference Seminary at Tilton, and entered Wesleyan University in the fall of 1860, but left in his junior year to enter the Union army. He served the remainder of the war, and was discharged as First Sergeant of Captain Sumner T. Smith’s Company C, One Hundred and Ninety-First Ohio Volunteers, in August 1865. At the close of the war he entered upon reformatory work, as teacher in the Boys’ Reform School at Deer Island, Boston Harbor, during the winter of 1865-66. In April following he went to the Connecticut Reform School, remained there seven and a half years, and in September 1873 was appointed Superintendent of the Girls’ Industrial School at Middletown, Conn. He left this position April 1, 1874, to take charge of the Reform School for Boys at Jamesburg, N. J., where he remained ten and a half years, and resigned to take charge of the Sockanosset School for Boys at Howard, R. I., September 1, 1884. In March 1886 he was appointed General Superintendent of Rhode Island State Institutions, holding this position ever since. He belongs to the West Side, Pomham and Athletic clubs of Providence, and is a member of all the Masonic orders to the thirty-second degree, also of Prescott Post No. 1, Department of Rhode Island. Grand Army of the Republic. He married, October, 10 1862, Elizabeth Finley of Middletown, Conn.; they have four children : George L., Assistant Secretary of the Rogers’ Silver Plate Company, Danbury, Conn.; Frank G., M. D., East Greenwich, R. I.; Alice Trowbridge, Providence, R. I., and Grace EastmanSource: Rhode Island Men in Progress - Submitted by Erica Beatty
EDDY, Charles D., Collector of Customs for Bristol and Warren District, was born in Providence, October 1, 1829, the son of Cyrus B. and Eunice(Dyer) Eddy. His ancestry was of well known Rhode Island stock on both paternal and maternal sides. His early education was limited, and he adopted seafaring as a profession when quite young. He was promoted to positions of responsibility and was master of vessels in the foreign trade for fourteen years. In 1891 he was appointed Collector of Customs for the District’ of Warren and Bristol, which office he now holds. He is a member of the Masonic order. In politics he has always been a Republican. He married in March 1862 Miss Sarah Martin Bennett, daughter of Capt. Albert C. Bennett, who died in 1886 : they have had three children, Mary Eunice, Grace Dyer and Sarah Martin (deceased) Eddy.Source: Rhode Island Men in Progress - Submitted by Marie Miller
ELY, James Winchell Coleman, physician and surgeon, was born October 2, 1820, in Windsor, Vt., son of Rev. Richard M. and Lora (Skinner) Ely. He came of good old New England stock on both sides. His paternal ancestor, Nathaniel Ely, was made a freeman of Cambridge, Mass., in 1635, and in June 1636 with a hundred others accompanied Rev. Thomas Hooker and made the first settlement of Hartford, Conn; in 1654, he with others purchased land of Governor Ludlow and settled at Norwalk, and in 1659 he sold his Norwalk property and removed to Springfield, Mass, where he died December 25, 1695. Dr. Ely fitted for college in an academy at Townsend, Vt., under Prof.Wheeler, who was afterward Professor of Greek in Brown University. He entered Brown University in 1838 and graduated in 1842 with the degree of A. B., receiving the degree of A. M. some years later. Immediately upon leaving college he began the study of medicine. He attended two courses of lectures in the Medical Department of Harvard University, and received the degree of M. D.March 12, 1846. From April 1844 to April 1845 he was Interne at the city institution at South Boston, long before the House of Industry was removed to Deer Island. He settled in Providence in April 1846, and was admitted a fellow of the Rhode Island Medical Society in 1847. He has served in every office in the gift of the society, and was elected President for two years, 1868-1870. He was one of the founders of the Providence Medical Association, its first Secretary and afterward its President. In 1847 he was appointed Dispensary Physician for the whole east side of the city, in which place he served four years, and on his resignation was appointed on the board of consultation. In 1850 he was elected one of the physicians of the Dexter Asylum, and also City Physician. He served in the former capacity fifteen and a half years, and in the latter eighteen years. Upon his resignation he was placed upon the consulting staff of the asylum. In January 1868 he was elected to the board of consultation at the Butler Hospital, which position he still holds. Upon the opening of the Rhode Island Hospital in 1868 he was elected one of the attending physicians. He resigned in 1874 and was placed on the consulting staff. In 1883, at the request of Professor Chace, President of the Board of Trustees, he again took the part of Attending Physician, and served six years. Since that time he has been on the consulting staff. Ever since the opening of the Providence Lying-in Hospital he has been a member of its consulting staff. He is a member of the American Academy of Medicine, and has served several times as delegate to the American Medical Association. Soon after settling in Providence he joined the Franklin Society, a scientific association, and was an active member, reading many papers, and having been elected its President. During the civil war he served with Dr. Joseph Mauran as an examining board for applicants for the positions of surgeons and assistant surgeons in the Rhode Island regiments. He has served for three years as one of the directors of the Providence Athenaeum, and two years as a member of the city School Committee. He is a member of the Squantum Club. He married, June 6, 1848, Miss Susan Backus, daughter of Lieut.-Gov. Thomas Backus, of Killingly, Conn.: he has two children: Joseph C. and Edward F. Ely.Source: Rhode Island Men in Progress - Submitted by Marie Miller
ELY, Joseph Cady, attorney-at-law, Providence was born in Providence, March 24, 1849, the son of Dr. James W. C. and Susan (Backus) Ely. The record of his ancestry will be found in the sketch of Dr. J. W. C. Ely. He received his early education in the grammar and high schools of Providence. He entered Brown University and graduated in the class of 1870 with the degree of A. B. He then entered the Harvard Law School and graduated in 1872 with the degree of LL. B. He was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in December 1872. He entered the office of James Tillinghast as an assistant, and in 1874 formed a partnership with him, which continued until 1883, since which time he has practiced law alone. The specialty of his practice is equity, real estate, conveyance and consultation. In 1890 he was appointed member of a commission to revise the laws of Rhode Island under a statute directing revision and compilation, and whose work has been to reform the judicial system and practice in all courts, bringing the courts into closer relations, giving more efficient administration, more systematic methods of procedure, and speediness in litigation; to reform the property law and the proceedings in cases of insolvency ; also to revise the laws as to corporations, property of married women, marriage and divorce, and other matters, a work not heretofore at-tempted in this state. He was a member of the School Committee of Providence in 1885-86. He is a member and ex- President of the Unitarian Club, ex-President of the First Congregational Church Society. President of the Providence Athenxum and chairman of its library committee. He is Secretary of the Providence Art Institute, and is a member of the American Bar Association. He married, November 6,1877, Miss Alice Peck; they have had three children : Alice Louise (deceased), Ruth and Robert B. Ely.Source: Rhode Island Men in Progress - Submitted by Marie Miller
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