Thomas Williams Bicknell (September 6, 1834 – October 6, 1925) was an American educator, historian, and author.
Thomas W. Bicknell was born in Barrington, Rhode Island to Harriet Byron Kinnicutt (September 1, 1791 – December 15, 1837), daughter of Josiah Kinnicutt and Rebecca Townsend Kinnicutt, and Rhode Island minister and Senator, Lt.-Col. Allin Bicknell (April 13, 1787 – August 16, 1870), who had served with the Bristol County, Rhode Island Militia. [1] [2] Thomas Bicknell attended Thetford Academy in Vermont and Amherst College in Massachusetts, taught school and became principal in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, then principal in Elgin, Illinois.
When he returned to Rehoboth, serving as principal once again, he earned a master's degree from Brown University. While a senior at Brown, he was elected State Representative in the Rhode Island General Assembly. After graduating from Brown, he became principal of Bristol High School and then Arnold Street Grammar School, then back to Bristol High School.
Rhode Island Governor Seth Padelford (Republican 1869–1873) selected Bicknell to be the Commissioner of Public Schools in 1869. As commissioner, he focused on re-establishing the Normal School (now Rhode Island College). He was a gifted speaker and fundraiser who would triple the amount of money spent on public education; he also established a Rhode Island State Board of Education, oversaw the selection of school superintendents in every town and city in the state, dedicated over 50 new schoolhouses, and increased the school year from 27 to 35 weeks.
In the 1850s, Bicknell signed on to help settle the State of "Free Kansas" to prevent the spread of slavery. On the way to Kansas, he was taken hostage by bandits on the Missouri River, but after two weeks as a prisoner, sharpshooters set him adrift.
Bicknell was an equalist, a racial and sexual reformer, and an early advocate for ending Black segregation in schools; he also helped elect the United States' first all-female school board for the town of Tiverton, Rhode Island.
Bicknell joined the Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the American Revolution in 1896 and was the founder of the National Society of the Sons and Daughters of the Pilgrims and Order of the Founders and Patriots of America (1898). He re-established and was the president of the American Institute of Instruction, and was president of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction and the National Educational Association. He was the president of the New England Publishing Company.
In 1914, wanting to have a town named for him, he offered a 1,000-volume library to any town in Utah that would adopt his name. Two towns vied for the prize, Grayson and Thurber; the two towns compromised, and in 1916 Thurber changed its name to Bicknell, and Grayson took the name of Blanding, the maiden name of Bicknell's wife. The towns then split the library with 500 books to each. [3]
Bicknell and his wife, Amelia, donated $500 to the Rehoboth Antiquarian Society in Rehoboth to establish the Blanding Public Library in memory of Amelia's parents, Christopher and Chloe Blanding.
In addition to education, he was also active in civic activities and the church. He served as commissioner from Rhode Island to the Universal Exposition at Vienna, Austria. He helped establish the U.S. Postal Code system as a member of the 1878 Postal Congress. He served as president in over thirty associations and organizations and was a member in over one hundred. He was president of the International Sunday School Union, the Massachusetts Congregational Sunday School Union, the Chautauqua Teachers' Reading Union, and the New England Sunday School Association.
Thomas W. Bicknell died in Providence, Rhode Island on October 6, 1925. [4]
Bicknell was an author, editor, and publisher of the New England Journal of Education (Boston, 1875–1880). He was the author of the six-volume History of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, [5] the author-publisher of The Governors of Rhode Island, The Dorr War, The Story of the Rhode Island Normal School, [6] and Story of Dr. John Clarke, [7] and the editor-publisher of History and Genealogy of the Bicknell Family and Collateral Lines. [8] As a historian he also contributed to The Bay State Monthly magazine. [9]
Bristol County is a county in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 579,200. The shire town is Taunton. Some governmental functions are performed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, others by the county, and others by local towns and cities.
Rehoboth is a historic town in Bristol County, Massachusetts. Established in 1643, Rehoboth is one of the oldest towns in Massachusetts. The population was 12,502 at the 2020 census. Rehoboth is a mostly rural community with many historic sites including 53 historic cemeteries.
Bicknell is a town along State Route 24 in Wayne County, Utah, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 327.
Stephen Hopkins, a Founding Father of the United States, was a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and a signer of the Continental Association and Declaration of Independence. He was from a prominent Rhode Island family, the grandson of William Hopkins who was a prominent colonial politician. His great grandfather Thomas Hopkins was an original settler of Providence Plantations, sailing from England in 1635 with his cousin Benedict Arnold who became the first governor of the Rhode Island colony under the Royal Charter of 1663.
Barrington is a suburban, residential town in Bristol County, Rhode Island located approximately 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Providence. It was founded by Congregationalist separatists from Swansea, Massachusetts and incorporated in 1717.
John Coggeshall Sr. was one of the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the first President of all four towns in the Colony. He was a successful silk merchant in Essex, England, but he emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1632 and quickly assumed a number of roles in the colonial government. In the mid-1630s, he became a supporter of dissident minister John Wheelwright and of Anne Hutchinson. Hutchinson was tried as a heretic in 1637, and Coggeshall was one of three deputies who voted for her acquittal. She was banished from the colony in 1638, and the three deputies who voted for her acquittal were also compelled to leave. Before leaving Boston, Coggeshall and many other Hutchinson supporters signed the Portsmouth Compact in March 1638 agreeing to form a government based on the individual consent of the inhabitants. They then established the settlement of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, one of the four towns comprising the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
Benedict Arnold was president and then governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, serving for a total of 11 years in these roles. He was born and raised in the town of Ilchester, Somerset, England, likely attending school in Limington nearby. In 1635 at age 19, he accompanied his parents, siblings, and other family members on a voyage from England to New England where they first settled in Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In less than a year, they moved to Providence Plantation at the head of the Narragansett Bay at the request of Roger Williams. In about 1638, they moved once again about five miles (8 km) south to the Pawtuxet River, settling on the north side at a place commonly called Pawtuxet. Here they had serious disputes with their neighbors, particularly Samuel Gorton, and they put themselves and their lands under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, a situation which lasted for 16 years.
The Rehoboth Carpenter family is an American family that helped settle the town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts in 1644.
Nicholas Easton (c.1593–1675) was an early colonial President and Governor of Rhode Island. Born in Hampshire, England, he lived in the towns of Lymington and Romsey before immigrating to New England with his two sons in 1634. Once in the New World, he lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony towns of Ipswich, Newbury, and Hampton. Easton supported the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy, and was disarmed in 1637, and then banished from the Massachusetts colony the following year. Along with many other Hutchinson supporters, he settled in Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, later a part of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was in Portsmouth for about a year when he and eight others signed an agreement to create a plantation elsewhere on the island, establishing the town of Newport.
Thomas Davis was a British-American manufacturer, politician and abolitionist. He was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and served in the Rhode Island State Senate and the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
John William Davis was a United States Democratic politician, who served as the 38th and 41st Governor of Rhode Island.
John Cranston (1625–1680) was a colonial physician, military leader, legislator, deputy governor and governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations during the 17th century.
Gregory Dexter was a renowned printer of important and controversial books and pamphlets in London. In New England, he assumed various roles including serving as a consultant to printers, a Baptist minister, an owner of a limestone quarry, and a political figure elected as president of the combined towns of Providence and Warwick in colonial Rhode Island. He is best known as the printer of Roger Williams's book A Key into the Language of America in 1643, the first English translation of a Native American language.
John Smith was an early colonial settler and President of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He lived in Boston, but was later an inhabitant of Warwick in the Rhode Island colony where he was a merchant, stonemason, and served as assistant. In 1649 he was selected to be President of the colony, then consisting of four towns. In 1652 he was once again chosen President, but the two towns on Rhode Island had been pulled out of the joint colony, so he only presided over the towns of Providence and Warwick. An important piece of legislation enacted during this second term in 1652 abolished the slavery of African Americans, the first such law in North America.
Jeremy Clarke (1605–1652) was an early colonial settler and President of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Born into a prominent family in England, he was a merchant who came to New England with his wife, Frances Latham, and four stepchildren, settling first at Portsmouth in 1638, but the following year joining William Coddington and others in establishing the town of Newport. Here he held a variety of civic positions until 1648 when Coddington's election as President of the colony was disputed, and Clarke was chosen to serve in that office instead. He was the father of Walter Clarke, another colonial governor of Rhode Island, and also had family connections with several other future governors of the colony.
William Greene Sr. was a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a clerk of the county court in Providence, deputy from Warwick, speaker of the Rhode Island Assembly, and then deputy governor from 1740 to 1743. He became governor for the first time in 1743 and served four separate terms for a total of 11 years, and died while in office during his final term.
Thomas Angell (c.1616–1694) was one of the four men who wintered with Roger Williams at Seekonk, Plymouth Colony in early 1636, and then joined him in founding the settlement of Providence Plantation in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a minor at the time of his arrival, but his name appears on several of the early documents related to the settlement of Providence. In the early 1650s, he became active in the affairs of the town, serving as commissioner, juryman, and constable. In 1658, he began his service as the Providence Town Clerk and held this position for 17 years. He wrote his will in 1685, dying almost a decade later in 1694, leaving a widow and many grown children. Angell Street on Providence's East Side is named for him.
William R. Walker & Son was an American architectural firm in Providence, Rhode Island, active during the years 1881 to 1936. It included partners William Russell Walker (1830–1905), William Howard Walker (1856–1922) and later William Russell Walker II (1884–1936).
William Greene Jr. was the second governor of the state of Rhode Island, serving in this capacity for eight years, five of which were during the American Revolutionary War. From a prominent Rhode Island family, his father, William Greene Sr., had served 11 terms as a colonial governor of Rhode Island. His great-grandfather, John Greene Jr. served for ten years as deputy governor of the colony, and his great-great-grandfather, John Greene Sr. was a founding settler of both Providence and Warwick.
Francis Weekes, also spelled Wickes, was a founding settler of Providence in what would become the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
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