Henry Bowen Anthony (April 1, 1815 – September 2, 1884) was an American journalist and politician. He served as editor and was later part owner of the Providence Journal. He was the 21st governor of Rhode Island, serving between 1849 and 1851 as a member of the Whig Party. Near the end of the 1850s, he was elected to the Senate by the Rhode Island Legislature and was re-elected 4 times. He would be twice elected to the Senate's highest post as President pro tempore during the Grant administration, and served until his death in 1884.
Early life
The son of William Anthony and Mary Kennicut Greene, Anthony was born in Rhode Island.
As editor of the Journal, Anthony was a conservative, supporting law and order, property requirements for voting, and restrictions on the political power of immigrants. On returning, he joined the Know Nothing movement and used the Journal to back its American Party. In Rhode Island, the American Party merged into the Republican Party, and Anthony was elected to the United States Senate as an "American-Republican." Initially conciliatory toward the secessionists, he was a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln's efforts to restore the Union during the American Civil War. Mindful of Anthony's age and infirmity, his colleagues accorded him special honor at the start of his fifth senatorial term in 1883:<blockquote>As the good old man stood with uplifted hand, every other member of the Senate rose, and stood until the obligation had been administered—a merited compliment to the Pater Senatus. No other man, save Thomas Hart Benton, had ever been sworn in five consecutive times as Senator.</blockquote>
The Dorriad
While in his twenties, Anthony wrote a poetical burlesque satire of the events of the Dorr Rebellion, which was published without attribution in Boston by Justin Jones, 1842. Nearly three decades later, in 1870, it would be republished, again without attribution to Anthony, along with another work concerning the events (by others attributed, with Anthony), titled The Dorriad, and The Great Slocum Dinner, by Sidney S. Rider & Brother, Providence.
Death and legacy
Anthony's funeral, which took place from the First Congregational Church in Providence on 6 September 1884 was the largest funeral ever known in Rhode Island.
Anthony bequeathed a portion of his library, known as the "Harris Collection of American Poetry," to Brown University. It consisted of about 6,000 volumes, mostly small books, many exceedingly rare. It was begun in the first half of the 19th century by Albert G. Greene, continued by Caleb Fiske Harris, and, after his death, completed by his kinsman Senator Anthony.
His name is engraved on a Civil War vintage artillery piece belonging to the Squantum Club in East Providence, Rhode Island. (Two other names are engraved on the artillery piece - General, Governor and Senator Ambrose Burnside and Senator Nelson Aldrich.) The artillery piece is reputed to have been the only gun from Battery A, 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery which did not fall into Confederate hands at the Battle of Bull Run. There is another nearly identical piece, known as the "Bull Run Gun", enshrined at the Rhode Island State House, for which is claimed the same distinction.
Family
In 1837 Anthony married Sarah Aborn Rhodes, daughter of Christopher Rhodes of Pawtuxet. She died in 1854.