James G. Angell

November 26, 1857, Thanksgiving day, Richmond Street Congregational Church. 

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in Paradise, and into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined...” 

James Gilbert Angell, 36, stole a quick peak at the young woman standing beside him at the altar and felt a wave of tenderness wash over him. As he watched the woman he would spend the rest of his life with out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t have been more pleased. Cinderella Briggs Angell, he mused, had a decidedly nice ring to it.

“Therefore if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace...”

He glanced over to his left. His mother Phebe was dabbing her eyes with a white lace handkerchief; his father Solomon leaned back against the hard wooden pew, his eyes full of pride. Their hearts rejoiced to see their firstborn son so suitably married to the daughter of William and Mary (also known as Polly) Fenner, a well-respected large landholder from the nearby town of Cranston. The match was a good one, beneficial to both parties. They were sure that their son would make his new bride happy. 

Like his wife, James G. Angell had been raised on a farm. For the first 30 years of his life, as befitting his duties as the eldest son, he had worked alongside his father on their homestead in Scituate, Rhode Island, tilling the acres of field crops and taking care of the family’s animals. 

When Angell turned 21 years old, his father consented to pay him a salary of $100 per year, in addition to free room and board. The young James Angell had to earn his keep; Solomon Angell’s family lived comfortably but not extravagantly. Since no one could accurately predict when an unexpected hurricane or an early frost would destroy an entire harvest, the life of a farmer was still filled with a fair amount of uncertainty and prayers to the Almighty for favorable weather and soil conditions. But the rapid advance in the 1820s of transportation technology, such as the introduction of a nationwide system of canals, turnpike roads and bridges, combined with improvements to agricultural implements and methods, had helped to stabilize the agrarian lifestyle and ease many a worried husband and father’s mind. 

The Angells were an old farming family with roots going back all the way to the original settlers of Rhode Island. When Roger Williams founded the first permanent white settlement in what would later become the State of Rhode Island (at Providence in 1636 on land purchased from the Narragansett Indians), Thomas Angell, the first patriarch of the family, was one of the five men who joined him in his new colony. Originally from London, England, Angell had sailed to the American colonies with Williams on the British ship “Lion” in February of 1631. After Williams was banished from Massachusetts in the winter of 1636 for his then liberal religious views, Angell stuck by his side and followed him faithfully in his time of persecution until he founded his settlement the following spring. For his loyalty, the young Angell was ceded a six-acre home lot in Williams’ celebrated deed parceling out his newly acquired land, and in 1652 was elected one of five commissioners to make laws for the colony. In later years he grew to great prominence in political and social circles, and died a wealthy landholder in 1694. 

After Thomas Angell’s death, his son John continued to live in the Providence area on a farm just five miles north of the city’s borders on the way to Lime Rock. He cultivated his farm for most his life, then moved back the city, where he died in 1720. Meanwhile, his son Thomas was just embarking on a decidedly different career. 

In 1710 settlers from Scituate, Massachusetts had just settled the area about 12.5 miles west of Providence. Either due to loyal nostalgia or lack of creativity, they christened their new town “Scituate, Rhode Island”. An enterprising young man with a head for business, Thomas Angell immediately spotted a niche and moved there to fill it. That very year, he built a tavern on Scituate’s main thoroughfare, Norwich Road. It was an instant success. Angell Tavern, as it was called, became a watering hole of sorts for the residents of Scituate. In 1731, when the State of Rhode Island officially recognized the town as a separate entity from Providence, Scituate’s first town meeting to elect municipal leaders was held in the tavern. 

Before he died in Scituate in 1744, Thomas Angell purchased a farm about one half mile north of his tavern for one of his sons, Nehemiah Angell. Nehemiah resided on the property until his untimely death in middle life from a foot injury received while wading in a river. His son, Pardon Angell, inherited the farm. He worked the land until the onset of the Revolutionary War, when he put down his plow and exchanged it for a rifle. After the War, Pardon returned to the farm. He died in 1838, bequeathing the farm to his son, Solomon Angell.

Following his father Solomon’s footsteps, James Angell began working on the farm as a boy. When he turned 21 and began earning a salary, he saved as much of his money as he could, preparing for the day when he would launch his career as a butcher in South Scituate. While part of him did enjoy working with his hands, working with the earth and its fruits, his youth craved the variety and excitement of the city. After nine years of working on the farm and saving, he was ready to begin his new career. 

In 1851, with his parents’ blessing, he moved to South Scituate to open a small butcher shop. In 1853, two years later, Angell closed his butcher shop and moved to Providence to work for a pork-packing firm at 47 Bridgham St., just down the street from his home, 25 Bridgham St. He liked the urban setting, and as an added bonus enjoyed the company of his sister Caroline and her agreeable husband Arnold P. Mathewson, who also lived in the city and worked as a pork cutter.

James Angell spent the next four years working for the pork-packing firm, and, after two brief stints as a butcher in 1857 and an omnibus driver in 1858, combined his assets with his brother-in-law’s to buy out the business. The two men renamed the firm Angell & Mathewson and continued to run the business together until 1867, when the uncertain and unstable commercial conditions brought about by the Civil War forced them to shut down. 

As businesses around them fought during those lean years just to keep afloat, Angell and his brother-in-law decided that exiting the market would be preferable to hazarding the almost certain losses ahead. Now a 46-year-old man with a wife and two young sons, James G. Angell made up his mind -- he would return to the life that he had left so many years ago as a young man eager for a taste of city life. He would once again hitch his oxen to the plow, and dig his hands deep into the rich brown soil. The Angells were moving back to a farm.

From 1867 until 1901, James Angell devoted his attention to the large farm that he had purchased in his wife’s hometown of Cranston. During this time, he lost his two oldest sons to disease (his firstborn John Dexter, died on Feb. 16, 1867 of diphtheria, and Elisha Arnold, died on Nov. 1, 1879 of scarlet fever) and fathered two more sons (Henry Gilbert, born on Sept. 7, 1858, and Arthur Fenner, born on Jan. 1, 1861). Then, on Oct. 26, 1898, he buried his faithful wife Cinderella, aged 74 years old, beside her two young sons in Grace Church Cemetery.

Heartbroken by the loss of his wife, James Angell considered the alternatives before him. His two living sons were grown men now in their late thirties, and both had gone West to seek their fortunes. After assisting him on the farm for the majority of their youth, each had since pursued other interests. 

After a brief period spent working for a jewelry manufacturing business in Providence, Henry Gilbert had packed his bags and headed for Ulysses, Nebraska, 1,515.7 miles from Providence. He married a German immigrant woman from the next town over, Rising City, and settled with her to raise a family and carry out business in a number of local enterprises. 

Meanwhile, his brother Arthur was also making a name for himself in the Midwest. In 1882 he had first gone to Butler County, Nebraska, to work as a farm hand and deal with livestock. Then, in 1886, he moved to Montana, where he spent the next few months tending a large cattle ranch. By the end of that year he had made his way back to his brother’s town of residence, Ulysses, where he was welcomed heartily by his brother, sister-in-law and three strapping nephews. 

Pleased with his education in the Providence public school system, a brokerage firm engaged Arthur as a stock dealer. One year later, pooling his earnings and savings, Arthur Angell purchased a farm of 80 acres just outside Ulysses. Over the years he continued to purchase additional farms, and by 1900 owned 400 acres of fertile land. 

During this time, Arthur had extended his agricultural operations to include raising blooded cattle, and was the first to introduce the popular Red Polled breed to the Midwest. He was also the first to grow alfalfa in that region. 

But in 1900 he felt the call of filial duty, and duly bade his brother’s family goodbye. After renting out his farms, Arthur returned to Providence with his Omaha-born wife and their two children to assist his father in the management of the family property. 

James G. Angell appreciated his son’s help, and enjoyed the company of his grandchildren into his old age. But not wanting to become a burden on that family, he engaged a housekeeper, Ida M. Hopkins, to cook and clean for him for $3 per week. In 1901 he sold his farm in Cranston and retired a wealthy man. He purchased a spacious home at 119 Bridgham Street, the same street where he had lived and worked when he had first moved to Providence, less than a mile away from his son’s new home on Hudson Street. Together, they looked after his real estate interests in Providence. 

On Nov. 1, 1908, seven days before his 87th birthday, James Angell asked Hopkins to take on the additional duties of becoming his nurse as well. He spent the last two years of his life quietly at home. Unlike many other prominent men of his time, James G. Angell never joined a social organization or ran for a public office (although he was a Democrat in principle). Nevertheless, his reputation as a respected man from an old Rhode Island family was never doubted for a minute. Even at 87, he looked the part; people remarked with admiration how gracefully he had aged and how he had the stature and appearance of a much younger man than he was. 

Under the surface, however, things were not as perfect as they seemed. Unseen by friends and acquaintances, a malignant tumor was invading Angell’s liver, causing him acute abdominal pain and sporadic fevers. As his body began to succumb to the cancerous cells that were taking it over, he lost weight. His faithful nurse Ida Hopkins made him comfortable in his last days, and on February 24, 1910, James G. Angell passed away, surrounded by relatives and friends. 

Since Angell died intestate, his estate was divided equally between his two sons. He had various sums deposited in the Providence Institute for Savings, the Industrial Trust Company, Citizen’s Savings Bank and the Union Trust Company totaling $29,946.36. He had owned two carriages, $8.50 worth of straw, hay and corn, a stove and coal to fuel it, two chests and an icebox, a hall rack, a harness and a $10 lawnmower. Among his personal possessions were his favorite fur robe and a $20 watch and chain. His total assets amounted to $30,715.56 ($581,462.98 in today’s dollars).

By the time he died, James G. Angell had lived to see his two youngest sons grow successful and well respected. With great pride he had watched them marry and father five of his grandchildren. Now, he would join his beloved wife in a grave beside their other two sons in the family plot at Grace Church Cemetery, a half mile away from their Bridgham Street home. He had lived a long life and was content to die. For a man who had never gotten the chance to go to school, and had farmed for all of his life, he had done extremely well.