Rowland G. Hazard

From about 1833 to 1842, Hazard spent his winters in New Orleans to sell goods, including cotton bagging cloth, pre-cut garments, low-priced shoes, and raw "Negro cloth" for use by African-American slaves.[7]

According to his granddaughter, Hazard considered that "the greatest effort of his life" began when he was in New Orleans on business in the winter of 1841 when he learned that a free African-American man from Newport was being held in custody in Louisiana as an escaped slave. Hazard's investigations found that many free African-Americans were being detained under the assumption they were escaped slaves. He worked with Jacob Barker, then a New Orleans lawyer, to obtain freedom for nearly 100 people being held as slaves. The action later led to charges being filed against several public officials who were responsible for the illegal detentions.[6]

His involvement with abolitionist causes and in the Republican Party eventually caused his company to lose favor with its markets in the southern United States.[7] This helped to prompt the Peace Dale mills' transition from making cheap cotton products to selling higher quality woolens.[7][8]

Hazard served three one-year terms in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, winning election as a state representative in 1851, 1854 and 1880. He also was a state senator from 1866 to 1867. In 1856, he was one of Rhode Island's delegates to the founding convention of the Republican party.[7] Four years later he was a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention.[2]

In 1851, Hazard introduced a bill to the Rhode Island Assembly that proposed railroad companies should be responsible for providing an equal benefit to the public as they had a "habit of annexing private property." In 1854, while serving in the state legislature, he made a speech criticizing the Stonington Railroad Company for charging discriminatory rates for both freight and passengers. Shortly thereafter, the railroad company retaliated by refusing to let Hazard ride on one of its trains. Resolutions passed by the South Kingstown Town Council in reaction to his treatment are said to have formed "the germ of" the Interstate Commerce Law of 1886.[4]

Hazard retired from the textile business in 1866 and invested in the Union Pacific Railroad. After Union Pacific fell into financial disarray and became a party to the Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872, Hazard spent much time dealing with the company's financial affairs.[7] Hazard was also a prolific writer in the fields of philosophy, economics, and politics.[2][6]

"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."[10] Brown awarded him an honorary A.M. degree in 1845 and an LL.D. degree in 1869.[1]

Through his son Rowland, he was the grandfather of Rowland Gibson Hazard III (1855–1918),[13] Caroline Hazard (1856–1945), Frederick Rowland Hazard (1858–1917), Helen Hazard (1861–1925), and Margaret Hazard (1867–1940).[11] Caroline was an educator and author who served as the fifth president of Wellesley College,[14][15] and Rowland (father of Rowland Hazard III) and Frederick were both executives with the Solvay Process Company. Frederick is today known for hiring noted architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee to build Upland Farm, his 1899 residence built in Solvay, New York. Helen married Nathaniel T. Bacon and Margaret married the economist, statistician, inventor, and Progressive social campaigner Irving Fisher.[11]

Through his son John, he was the grandfather of Mary Peace Hazard (1874–1958), who married Rowland R. Robinson (1862–1934).[4]