Trails to the Past

Washington County Rhode Island Biographies

Men of Progress of Rhode Island and Providence Part 1
Source:  Boston New England Magazine 1896

BAILEY, George Cross, physician and surgeon, was born in Northampton, England, October 20, 1842, son of Samuel and Mary (Cross) Bailey. He was brought by his parents to America when three years of age. They settled in Unadilla, Otsego county, New York, where he received as complete an education as the school facilities of that place permitted. He commenced the study of medicine at the age of seventeen with Dr. Joseph Sweet of Unadilla and Dr. George W. Avery of Norwich, New York. In 1863 he enlisted in the Eighty-ninth Regiment New York Volunteers, and passed an examination as hospital steward. He acted as regimental surgeon until the close of the war, and was with his regiment at the surrender of General Lee a Appomattox. In 1865 he entered the Department of Medicine of the University of New York, and in 1866 the Long Island College Hospital. He commenced the practice of medicine in Andover Ashtabula county, Ohio.   He subsequently returned to Delaware county, near his old home, continuing the practice of his profession there until 1879, when he removed to Westerly, R. I., where he has since remained in successful and remunerative practice.  He is a member of Franklin Lodge, No. 20, A. F.  and A. M.; Palmer Chapter, No. 28, Royal Arch Masons ; Narragansett Commandery, No. 27, Knights Templar, and Hella Temple N. M. S., Texas. He married, April 6, 1867, Miss Lavantia Case; they have one daughter, Mary Ada Bailey.

CRAFTS, Albert Barnard, attorney-at-law, was born at Milan, N. H., September 4, 1851, son of Frederick A. and Maria L. (Soule) Crafts. He received his education in the high schools of Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, and Brockton, Mass. He graduated from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., in the class of 1871, afterwards receiving the degree of A. M. in course. He adopted the law as a profession, studied in the office of the Hon. Thomas H. Peabody, in Westerly, R. I., and was admitted to the Connecticut and Rhode Island bars in 1875. He has been a member of the firm of Peabody & Crafts and Crafts & Tillinghast, and has since practiced by himself in the Rhode Island, Connecticut and United States courts. He has not taken an active part in public life. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the Westerly Business Men's Association. He married, October 1, 1881, Miss Jennie Louisa Blake of Ashaway, R. I, who died November 19, 1884.  He married, December 17, 1892, Miss Mary Amittai Stark of Mystic, Conn; he has no children.

HILL, Frank, Ashaway, was born in Utica, N. Y., June 28, 1861, the son of Frank and Mary (Greene) Hill. His paternal grandfather was Horace Hill of Bennington, Vt., and his maternal grandfather was Wm. B. Greene of Westerly, R. I. He received his early education in the public schools of Independence, Alleghany county, N. Y., and graduated from Alfred University, Alfred, N. Y., in 1883 with the degree of A. B. He taught school for one year at North Loup, Neb., and for three years he was principal of the Hopkinton grammar school, one year before graduating and two years afterward. He then gave up teaching and became Cashier of the Ashaway National Bank, and Treasurer of the Ashaway Savings Bank, July 1, 1885, which position he now holds. Outside of the banking business his main interests have been with the public schools, and for the past eight years he has been Chairman of the Board of School Trustees of the town. He is now serving for the third term as the Representative of Hopkinton in the General Assembly, and is Chairman of the Committee on Education. In politics he is a Republican with independent tendencies. He married, October 6, 1885, Miss Emma Greene, daughter of M. J. Greene, of Alfred, N.Y.; they have three children : Evelyn Irene, Mary Hulda and Frank Maxsom Hill.

LEGRIS, Marie Joseph Ernest, physician and surgeon, was born in Louiseville, Province of Quebec, Canada, May 3, 1857, the son of Antoine L. and Marie L. (Beland) Legris. He is of French descent.  His grandfather Legris was born in France and emigrated to Canada about 1770. His son Antoine L. was the father of eleven children, one a priest in Webster, Mass., one a lawyer, now deceased, one a member of the Federal Parliament of Canada, and two doctors. Dr. Legris received his early education in the elementary schools, and took a complete classical course of eight years at the Nicolet College on the St. Lawrence, Canada.   He received his medical training for four years at the Victoria College,  Montreal, graduating in March 1879. He first located in Natick, R. I., and after sixteen months' residence there removed to Arctic, where he has since remained, enjoying a large practice in the town and neighborhood.   He is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society.   He has been the medical examiner of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York since the death of Dr. Job Kenyon, which took place in 1887.   He was the first French Canadian elected to the Town Council of Warwick, and held that position for four years, from 1889 to 1892.   He endorses the principles of the Republican party, and has worked earnestly to induce his people to become naturalized.   Since he began that work by the formation of clubs, the number of naturalized French Canadians has increased from about twenty five to eight hundred.  He was charter member of the Societe St. Jean-Baptiste, of Centreville, and its President for the first three years, and since, its Treasurer; is a member of Court Warwick, Foresters of America, and its physician since its organization in 1887, and is also a member of many other benevolent societies.  He is a Roman Catholic and a member of St. Jean-Baptiste Church in Centreville, of which he is a trustee. He is a Director in the Centreville National Bank. On October 27, 1881, he married Miss L. H. Leopoldine Des Rosiers, of Montreal; they have had seven children: Marie Blanche, Louis J. A., Charles Ernest, Marie L. Florina (deceased), Jean Martial, M. L. Florette and Marie Edith Legris.

ROBINSON, Rowland Rodman, physician and surgeon, was born in Wakefield, R.I., August 23,1862, son of Benjamin Franklin and Caroline Elizabeth (Rodman) Robinson. He is descended from well-known and distinguished Rhode Island ancestry, which includes five colonial governors—William Coddington, Nicholas Easton, Benedict Arnold, Peleg Sandford and John Coggeshall; and from three deputy-governors—John Greene, George Hazard and William Robinson. He is connected with the old and honored South County families of the Browns, Peckhams, Gardiners, Hazards, Carpenters, Rodmans and others, and among his direct ancestors were Deputy Governor William Robinson and Hon. Samuel Rodman.   He received his early education in the public schools until the age of fifteen, and attended Captain Bucklyn's school at Mystic, Conn., for three years, and Gen. Russell's military school in New Haven for one year. He was a special student at Harvard College from 1881 to 1885, and attended the Harvard Medical School from 1885 to 1888, graduating with the degree of M. D.   He was a student for two years, from 1888 to 1890, at the General Hospital in Vienna, Austria, attending clinics and studying medicine in all its branches, and for three months at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, where he paid special attention to midwifery.   On his return to this country he established himself in the practice of medicine in his native town in 1890, where he has since remained.  He has been Town Physician of South Kingston for three years. He was commissioned Captain of Company F, First Regiment of Infantry, Rhode Island Militia, May 3, 1895. He has been a Trustee of the Rhode Island Institute for the Deaf since November 19, 1891. He is a member of the Rhode Island State Medical Society, of the Washington County Medical Society, of the Harvard Medical School Graduate Society, and of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. In politics he is a Republican.   He is not married.

SMITH, Frank Bailey physician and surgeon, Washington, was born in Columbus, Ga., January 3, 1848, son of Benonie and Mary Anna (Bailey) Smith. His grandparents were of English and Scotch ancestry of worthy lineage. Feeble health in early life prevented his attending school. Later however he attended private schools, and still later, public schools, after which he took an academic course under the private instruction of Professor Hall. He studied medicine for three years with Dr.  Wm. A. Lewis of Moosup, Conn., and one year with Dr. F. S. Abbott, a prominent surgeon of Norwich, Conn. He then took a medical course at the University of Vermont, after which he graduated from the University of New York City in 1873. He is of the Baptist faith and a member of that church.  He is an active temperance worker, and was an ardent advocate for constitutional prohibition in Rhode Island. He was formerly a Republican, but when the Republican Legislature and Republican party advocated and voted for the repeal of constitutional prohibition, he left their ranks and has been an earnest worker in the Prohibition party ever since, and is now a member of the Prohibition State Central Committee. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and an active member of the Order of United American Mechanics. He is a strong woman suffragist, and a member of the state association championing the cause. He is also a member of the Women's Suffrage League of his own town. He is a member of the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and one of the executive board. He is in fact a moral reformer in general. He is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He began the practice of medicine in Greene, R. I. Six years later he married Miss Evangeline H., daughter of Dr. Allen Tillinghast, of Washington, R. I. After the death of the latter he succeeded him in practice at Washington, where he is still residing and doing a large and successful business.   He has no children.

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