Rowland Gibson Hazard Papers (Mss. Gr. 9)

Biographical note

Rowland Gibson Hazard was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island on October 9, 1801, the son of Rowland and Mary (Peace) Hazard. He was raised in the home of his maternal grandfather, Isaac Peace, in Bristol, Pennsylvania and attended school in Burlington, New Jersey. He returned to Rhode Island in 1819 and, together with his brother Isaac Peace Hazard, began managing the Peace Dale Manufacturing Company established by his father in 1800.

Rowland Gibson Hazard was involved in a number of public activities. As a vocal critic of the institution of slavery, he associated himself with the Free-Soil Party. He was also active in the early affairs of the Republican Party, serving as a delegate to its 1856, 1860, and 1868 conventions. At the 1868 convention in Chicago he served on the Committee on Platform and drafted the financial plank of the party's platform. He served as a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1851-1852, 1854-1855, and 1880-1881, and from 1866-1867 was a member of the Rhode Island Senate.

Rowland Gibson Hazard was also a prolific writer who produced a long list of philosophical works during his lifetime. His most notable works include the Essay on Language (1834), Causes of Decline of Political Morality (1841), The Philosophical Character of Channing (1844), The Freedom of the Mind in Willing (1866), and Causation and Freedom in Willing (1869).

He was a close friend of the English philosopher John Stuart Mill and of William Ellery Channing, the founder of Unitarianism. As a public benefactor, Hazard contributed to the schools and churches in South Kingstown and endowed a professorship of physics at Brown University with a gift of $40,000. In 1845, he was awarded an honorary L.L.D. degree by Brown. Married to Caroline Newbold of Bloomsdale, Pennsylvania, Hazard had two sons, Rowland and John, the former of whom had a distinguished career of his own. Rowland Gibson Hazard died in Peace Dale, Rhode Island on June 24, 1888.