Year Inducted: 2001
Arnold Buffum - Arnold Buffum was one of Rhode Island’s leading abolitionists. He was born and raised in a farmhouse near Union Village in present-day North Smithfield. His childhood home, called the William Buffum House for his Quaker father who built it, still stands at 383 Great Road. Despite his rural roots, Arnold Buffum became an entrepreneur whose… …
Bishop Alexander Viets Griswold - Griswold, Alexander V. (Alexander Viets), 1766-1843 Bishop Alexander Viets Griswold (1766-1843) was one of the most prominent American churchmen of the early nineteenth century. He was born in Simsbury, Connecticut, the son of Elisha Griswold and Eunice Viets who were farmers. As a young boy he came under the influence of his uncle Roger… …
David A. Duffy - David A. Duffy of North Kingstown, is the retired chairman of the highly successful firm of Duffy & Shanley, a Providence based advertising, marketing and public relations firm. David Duffy worked his way up from a typicla Pawtucket Irish kid working in a bar to success as a prominent businessman and civic leader. Duffy… …
Doris Duke - Duke, Doris, 1912-1993 The late Doris Duke formerly of Newport, famed tobacco heiress who is one of Rhode Island’s greatest philanthropists. In 1968, she helped to launch the Newport Restoration Foundation to preserve that historic city’s 18th and early 19th century domestic architecture. Later, Ms. Duke made a major gift to the nature Conservancy to preserve… …
Ernest A. DiGregorio Jr. - Enest A. DiGregorio, Jr., the legendary “Ernie D.,” was a Providence College consensus All-American basketball guard in the early 1970's. Ernie D. played on the 1968 Rhode Island (Class B) champions at North Providence High School. His success on the court made him a local celebrity and he was known to drive fancy… …
George S. Araujo - The late George S. Araujo, formerly of Providence, a Cape Verdean from the Fox Point neighborhood of the City who is regarded as one of the greatest Rhode Island boxers of all time and was the world’s number-one ranked lightweight fighter when there was only one world ranking. George served as a longtime coach and… …
Harriet Ware - Harriet Ware, 1799-1849, a 19th-century reformer of strong religious convictions, founded the Providence Children's Friend Society, an organization still operating over 100 years later to serve impoverished Rhode Islanders. Upon her arrival in Hopkinton, RI, she shocked to see overcrowded and dilapidated homes, overflowing with unwanted, malnourished, filthy, shoeless children, many of whom worked 14-hour… …
Henry Barnard - Henry Barnard (1811-1900) was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale in 1830, taught school for a year in Pennsylvania, then returned to Connecticut to study law. Although he gained admission to the bar in 1834, he never practiced. After a sojourn in Europe, Barnard was elected as a Whig to the Connecticut legislature… …
John Holden Greene - Greene, John Holden, 1777-1850 John Holden Greene was a carpenter-architect who moved from his native Warwick to Providence in 1794 and designed his first major Providence structure, the Sullivan Dorr House, in 1809. Embracing the Neo-classical style known as Federal architecture, many of his homes were distinguished by roof and portico balustrading. Greene designed… …
John Whipple - John Whipple (1784-1866) of Providence was a leader of the early 19th century Rhode Island Bar, the state's foremost trial attorney, and Rhode Island's most prominent constitutional lawyer. Daniel Webster,Whipple's co-counsel in the landmark Rhode Island case of Luther v. Borden (1849) regarded Whipple and Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire as the two most formidable… …
Joseph K. Angell - Angell, Joseph K. (Joseph Kinnicut), 1794-1857 Joseph K. Angell (1794-1857) of Providence was one of America’s foremost legal scholars of his era. Most of his many legal treatises dealt with changes in the law occasioned by the transformation of the American economy from a commercial to an industrial base, and he was the nation’s leading… …
Mary Elizabeth Sharpe - The late Mary Elizabeth Sharpe formerly of Providence, was an entrepreneur, author, environmentalist, philanthropist, and self-taught landscape architect, whose achievements in the field of landscape design were legendary. She was instrumental in the beautification of Brown University, assisted in the creation of the Japanese Gardens at Roger Williams Park, and spearheaded the renovation of India… …
Michel S. Van Leesten - MICHAEL S. VAN LEESTEN, of Providence, Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, is the former director of the Department of Planning and Development for the City of Providence, former director of the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Rhode Island, former chairman of the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation, and… …
Prudence Crandall - Prudence Crandall was born in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, the daughter of Pardon Crandall, a Quaker farmer and Esther Carpenter, both of whom were descended from prominent old-line South County families. When Prudence was ten she moved to a farm in nearby Canterbury, Connecticut, but returned to Rhode Island from 1825 to 1830 as a student… …
Reverend James Fitton - Fitton, James, 1805-1881 Reverend James Fitton was one of New England’s foremost Catholic missionary priests. The energetic and seemingly ubiquitous Fitton was a driving force in the development of Rhode Island Catholicism establishing twenty widely-scattered parishes and serving in every major area of early Irish settlement including Newport, Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, and the Pawtuxet Valley.… …
Robert F Tasca - 1926 - 2010 Car Dealer and Philanthropist Extraordinaire In the 1960s the quality of cars coming off American manufacturers' assembly lines began to slip badly. Problems ranged from poor door fits, window leaks, wind noise and squeaks and rattles up to vibrations and drivability issues in the power train. The causes were shortcuts being taken… …
Robert L. Crandall - ROBERT L. CRANDALL, of Dallas, Texas and formerly of Westerly, retired President Emeritus of American Airlines where he worked for eighteen years holding positions as president, chairman and CEO. During his tenure with American, he spearheaded many innovative changes in the airline business prompting experts to describe him as “the man who changed the way… …
Russell Warren - Russell Warren, 1783-1860, was a Tiverton-born carpenter who became one of Rhode Island's leading architects. The first phase of his career (1800-1823) was marked by residence in Bristol where he designed mansions for that town's prosperous merchants. His move to Providence in 1826 allowed him to design (with James C. Bucklin) such important structures as… …
Senator William Sprague Jr. - Senator William Sprague, Jr. (1799-1856) was one of the most prominent members of a family that ranked as one of Rhode Island’s richest and most powerful during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century. He was the son and namesake of William Sprague, founder of the great textile empire, the younger brother of Amasa, whose… …
Seth Luther - Luther, Seth, 1795-1863 Seth Luther was the most memorable figure in the pioneering days of the Rhode Island labor movement. When he died in 1863, a Providence Journal obituary said that the “had considerable talent for both writing and speaking, but he was too violent, willful and headstrong to accomplish any good.” The editors… …
Zellio P. “Topper” Toppazzini - The late ZELLIO TOPPAZZINI, of North Providence, regarded as the greatest hockey player in Rhode Island history. Known to all as “Topper,” he is a member of the Rhode Island Reds Hall of Fame and was voted Reds Player of the Century. During his 18 year career, Topper not only played for the Reds, he also competed… …
