Richard Mead Atwater, Sr. (August 10, 1844 – 1922) was a chemist and public official in New Jersey and Pennsylvania involved in early scientific glass-making.
Atwater was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1844 into a Quaker family. His father, Stephen Atwater, was a civil engineer working on the Erie Canal, and later became the City Surveyor for Providence. His mother was Mary Weaver, who came from Hamilton, New York, the daughter of a Quaker ...
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Richard Mead Atwater, Sr. (August 10, 1844 – 1922) was a chemist and public official in New Jersey and Pennsylvania involved in early scientific glass-making.
Atwater was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1844 into a Quaker family. His father, Stephen Atwater, was a civil engineer working on the Erie Canal, and later became the City Surveyor for Providence. His mother was Mary Weaver, who came from Hamilton, New York, the daughter of a Quaker minister. Atwater spent his first 21 years in Providence.
Atwater lost his father at the age of 10. He was obliged to work and help his widowed mother carry on with her five children, getting up before dawn six days a week to fold and deliver newspapers. The work did not pay much but he learned the value of networking. He attended public school until he was 15, then attended the Friends Boarding School of Providence.
After graduating, he taught for a term at a public school in Wakefield, Rhode Island, meeting local industrialist Roland Hazard,...
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