ressing scenes which were then engrossing public attention.
On his return he immediately connected himself with the patriotic services which were already in progress in Rhode Island. In the following year he was chosen a senator from the town of North Providence, where he had resided since 1849, and he immediately -engaged in all the movements that depended in any way on the action of the legislature. He was made a member of the legislative committee on finance, and his careful judgment and well-known determination as a citizen of large resources, made him an authority in the financial questions before that body. The whole energy and strength of the state were then enlisted in the service of the country. Taxes were levied in amounts beyond all precedent, and Rhode Island was ready to make every exertion and every sacrifice which the crisis might demand. In promoting all these movements the senator from North Providence was actively engaged during his period of service.
In 1866 he was again chosen to the senate. The war was now ended and the legislature of the state was occupied with new questions, the chief of which were how to maintain the public credit and pay the public debts, which had swollen to large proportions. In addition to these matters of finance were questions as to how the legislature could best provide for those who had been disabled in the war, and how it could best honor the memories of those who had fallen in its battles. In the deliberations and discussions relating to these he took a very active part, and did much in shaping the measures that were adopted. He was a member not only of the finance committee, but also of the joint committee of both houses appointed to select a suitable site for ” a monument to the memory of the officers and men from Rhode Island, either in the army or the navy of the United States, who lost their lives in the service of the United States during the late rebellion,” and to procure designs and estimates for the monument. It was through the agency of this committee that the ” Soldiers’ Monument ” was erected, which now stands. in Exchange Place in Providence.
As has-been mentioned, he became a resident of North Providence in 1849, having at that time built as the home of his family an attractive mansion, on a farm belonging to Mrs. Grosvenor, not far north of the city line and now contained within it. In 1872 he removed to the house which he had bought on Prospect street, in which he passed the remaining years of his life. Long before this date he had given up the immediate care of the large business of the Grosvenor Dale Company to his two sons, Mr. William Grosvenor, Jr., the managing agent in Providence, and Mr. James B. M. Grosvenor, the selling agent in New York. Soon after his early settlement in Providence he had become connected with the congregation of Grace Church. He was for several years a member of its vestry, and was also an active and most helpful member of the committee for the erection of -its beautiful and costly house of worship on Westminster street. He was fond of society and dispensed a generous hospitality, and thus kept alive his interest in the new generations which were taking the place of that to which he belonged. His constitution was always robust, and at the age of seventy-eight years he retained his powers, both of body and mind, almost unimpaired. His death took place with very slight premonition, August 10th, 1888, at Maplewood, New Hampshire, whither he had gone for a brief season of summer recreation. It was occasioned by an acute and sudden affection of the heart and the lungs.
This sketch was prepared for the proceedings of the Rhode Island Historical Society, published in 1889.