The Portland daily press., 1881-06-10
The Sprague Estate.
The Rise and Fall OF the House that Con-
trolled the Providence Plantations.

Providence Letter to Hartford Courant.l
Lt Is said that there was but one man who
understood the Schleswig-H -Holstin question and
he is dead. The same state of affairs may al
most be said to exist in relation to the great
Sprague controversy in Rhode Island, Every
body knows something about it for it has been
the most engrossing subject here for the last
seven years, but the person who most thor
oughly understands it cannot be found 1t is
certainly the most absorbing question that
agitateS this community.
OLD WILLIAM sPRAGUE AND HIS SONS.
The foundations of the great house of the
Spragues, was laid by the grandfather of
the living representatives, William Sprague.
He began the manufacture of sheetings and
shirtings at very early period in the history
of the State. AT his death he was succeeded
by his two sons Amasa and William.
The leading spirit of the new firm was
Amasa, who under many difficulties and dis
couragements began at Cranston the business
OF calico printing in this country. OF this hard
headed, sterling and indominitable man some
of the most amusing stories are current. After
his successes had made privation unnecessary
he continued his frugal life and homely dress.
Nothing gave him greater satisfaction than to
confound those, who, by reason of his shabby
raiment treated him with contumely, by the
weigh of his purse and the magnitude of his
possessions. A great coarse man like his faith
er, nothing daunted him and nothing discour
aged him. There is current here character
istic anecdote of the "old man." to the effect
that on one occasion, when his paper was re.
fused at one of the Providence banks, he de-
termined to be revenged for what to him was
an insult and an indignity. He set himself at
work to collect the demand notes of the bank,
and when he was in possession OF large
amount he walked into the bank and demand
ed the specie. The bank officers were as
tonished and dismayed. In vain they expos
tulated. He told them in no gentle terms that
they had thrown out his paper and now,
damn 'em," he wanted them to pay their
own or he would send the whole batch to pro
test. They finally got the specie in time by all
sorts of make-shifts but it took nearly every
available dollar in Providence. If the inci-
dent did not increase their love for the man,
it certainly had the effect to make them care
full how they offended him afterwards.
THE GRAND SONS OF WILLIAM sPRAGUE.
When the "old man. died in 1857 his two
sons Amasa and William succeeded in the
business and continued the firm of A. & W.
Sprague. William Sprague and his family
took no active part in the business except that
the husband of his only daughter was the head
of the house of Hoyts, Sprague & Co., of New
York, the selling agent OF the great firm. At
the death of the father the present ex-Goyer-
nor and ex-senator William Sprague was about
% years of age. Amasa inherited many of the
characteristics of his immediate ancestors
He was very fond of horses and he had other
weaknesses, which his large fortune enabled
him to crafty. He was, however, exceedingly
generous, and one of the bonds of popular
sympathy for him in his changed estate consists
in the facts that in the days of his prosperity
he never turned the supplicant for any de-
serving charity empty handed away. Another
was that there was nothing stuck up'' about
Amasa. His first wife was from an humble
station in life and his boon companions were
the horsemen and good fellows" oil. the street
rather than the starched and worthy members
of what is called "good society" on College
hill.
The disposition of William was somewhat
different from that of Amasa He had am
bition and was determined to crafty it. He
liked the ecldt of great enterprises, and the
praise and adulation which Amasa held in
supreme contempt Amasa cared only that
the wheels should turn and make money and
everybody around him be contented and hap
py, and liked better horse race at Narragan-
sett park, which he founded and owned, than
all the allurements that society could offer.
BRILLIANT CAREER.
He was good brother and a warm friend.
His good sense and his hearty cooperation in
all the ambitious schemes of ''Bill," as he al
ways called his younger brother, and the vast
wealth OF the house made the success of the
ex-governor up to the day of the crash in 1873
absolutely uniquely phenomenal. He wanted to
be governor, at an age at which nobody in the
country had ever held such position, and the
road to the place was not merely smoothed, it
was built, by the retainers of the house who
shed their patrons money (what they did not
keep themselves) upon the just and the unjust
like the rains of heaven. During his admins
tratIon only about three years after the death
of his father, the war began and the house
added to the popularity of its junior member
by eauipping the State forces at its own ex-
pense, and the governor gratifed dominant
and unappeasable State pride by taking the
field at the head OF his troops.
Of course all this overturn, this comet-like
career, could not fail to arouse bitter and un-
relenting animosities. The conservatism of
the State was shocked, and its "aristocracy''
enraged. Previous to the advent of the
Spragues, the house of Brown & Ives, an
old, firmly established and money getting con-
Germ, had been the sole shrine Of worship and
the sole arbiter of affairs. To see their sceptre
pass away and into the hands of vulgar pd7.Ue-
aueS like the Spragues was altogether unbear-
able, and the rivalry of these two houses al
aha ,rrn1 SN1ta ..11-
camps.
EXTENT OF THE GREAT HOUSE.
But the Spragues were dominant every-
where, and there was little of popular sympa-
thy with their rivals anywhere. 1t was the
Spragues who were foremost in all measures
for the advancement of the material and in
dustrial interests of the State. They were
the owners and operators of the large print
works at Cranstop, the large factories at
Quidneck, Arctic and Natick, and the great
mill at Baltic in Connecticut They were the
principal promoters and owners of the i'm
mense establishment at Olneyville, one of the
suburbs of the city, called the Atlantic De
Laine works, the Union (horse) railroad Co.
of this city, the Phoenix Iron foundry. the
United States Flag company, the Comstock
Iron Co., the Sprague Moving Machines, the
Perkins sheet Iron Co., the Rhode Island
Horse Shoe Co., the Kennebec Land and
Lumber Co., and the Coburn Land and Lum-
Der company in Maine mill property at Co
lumbia, S. c., ETC., etc. All these were large
concerns, and some of them OF great impor-
tance, their value being estimated by millions.
To all these valuable properties must be ad-
ded large and valuable real estate in this city
and State, and bank stock and other personal
property difficult to enumerate.
In 1868, William Sprague was elected to the
United States Senate, and resigned the office
of governor, leaving behind him record for
patriotism and efficiency in the most eventful
period of the history of the State and nation
that any man might be proud Of
In November of this year he married Katha-
rine Chase, daughter Of the Secretary of the
Treasury, and allied himself to family of the
highest social standing and the most conspicu-
GUS ability of any in the country.
1t was the height of the prosperity of the
house, and the future seemed full of promise
but only a decade was necessary to dlsspate
the whole. The events of that decade will
not soon be forgotten here. 1t would require
more space than you have at disposal to
merely recount them. Nearly everything in
the State politically was under the influence
or control of the Spragues. 1t was the Sprague
influence that elected Thomas A DOYLE (Who
married sister of Amasa and William) may
or of Providence, who proved the best execu-
tive officer the corporation ever had ,and whose
administration transformed an overpraxvn