VOL. V.
No. 6.
BOSTON.
JUNK, 1893.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL OLNEY. THE members of the Suffolk Bar were taken entirely by surprise when they learned that Richard OIney had accepted the position of Attorney-General in President Cleveland's second Cabinet. They could not believe that a man who had always shrunk from holding public office and from every thing that led to publicity should, after thirty-five years of assiduous devotion to his jealous mistress, the law, accept the post. But their knowledge of their honored and learned brother taught them that a man with so keen and earnest a sense of public duty could not but answer to the call. Richard Olney comes naturally by his high sense of duty. He is directly descended from Thomas Olney, who came to America from St. Albans, in the county of Hertford, in 1635, settling in Salem. His stay was short. Fearless and independent in his belief, he was a trusty adherent of Roger Williams. When in 1637 Williams was disciplined — that is, in the view of the present time, was made to suffer martyrdom — and excommunicated by the ecclesiastical barbarians who ruled Church and State in Massachusetts Bay, Thomas Olney shared his pastor's sentence and expulsion. The result was the founding in 1637-38, by Williams, Olney, and others, of a remarkable community — Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations — and an equally remarkable faith, — the' Baptist Church in America. The descendants of Thomas Olney multiplied, and form one of the great families of Rhode Island to-day. One of these descendants was Richard Olney, born in 1770 at Smithfield, R. I., a leading merchant of Providence, and 33
one of the pioneers of the cotton manu facturing industry of New England. He established cotton-mills at East Douglas, Worcester County, Mass., in 1811. In [819 he moved to Oxford, Worcester County, where he became prominent as a citizen, merchant, and cotton manufacturer, holding many town offices and showing marked ability as a man of affairs. Failing in health, he moved to the neighboring village of Burrillville, where he died in 1841. Richard Olney's eldest son was Wilson Olney, who was born Jan. 10, 1802, at Providence, and moved to Oxford, Mass., with his father in 1819. He was engaged for many years in manufacturing woollen goods, and was the active man in the man agement of the Oxford Bank. He died Feb. 24, 1874, after a busy life of the utmost integrity, respected and beloved by his' neighbors. Wilson Olney married Eliza L. Butler, w.ho was the daughter of Peter Butler of. Oxford, and the grand-daughter of James Butler of Oxford. James Butler's wife was Mary Sigourney, great grand daughter of Andrew Sigourney, a French Huguenot who fled from France at the Revo cation of the Edict of Nantes, and was the most active man in the settlement of Ox ford by the French Huguenots in 1687. Wilson Olney had three sons, — Richard Olney, the present Attorney-General; Peter Butler Olney, a prominent member of the New York Bar; and George W. Olney, a leading woollen manufacturer of Worcester County. Richard Olney was born Sept. 15, 1835, at Oxford. ' He was educated at Leices
