Dorr Family Tree Text Version

Thomas Wilson Dorr
(1805 – 1854)

Thomas Dorr was born into privilege in November 1805, a scion of one of Rhode Island’s wealthiest families. His father, Sullivan Dorr, was a Providence businessman and prominent China trade merchant. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then at Harvard University (class of 1823), Thomas Dorr studied law for two years in New York City under Chancellor James Kent, the author of one of the leading American legal texts of the first half of the nineteenth century, before being admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1827. Dorr opened a law office on College Street, but the restless young man was not yet ready to settle down. He toured the country for almost six years and occasionally practiced maritime and commercial law in New York City before returning to Providence in 1833. In the 1830s, Dorr championed numerous reform causes, including public education, freedom of speech, banking, anti-slavery, suffrage extension, imprisonment for debt and prison reform. Dorr began his career as a devout Whig, with a deep and abiding love of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. However, disagreements over banking reform and suffrage extension led to his expulsion from the party. He would later head the equal rights wing of the state’s Democratic Party. In 1834, as a newly elected member of Rhode Island’s General Assembly, Dorr joined the Constitutionalist Party, a third-party effort that picked up the reform torch from associations of native-born workingmen. The goal of the party was to secure a new constitution that would expand the suffrage for white males and address the state’s apportionment problem. (Authored by Dr. Erik J. Chaput, 2012)

Sullivan Dorr
(1780 – 1855)

Sullivan Dorr, Sr. was the father of Thomas Wilson Dorr. Sullivan Dorr was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, Sullivan entered into the family merchant business, spending many years overseas in Canton, China. Upon his marriage to Lydia Allen of Providence in 1804 he settled in that city where he became involved in manufacturing. He also served as President of the Washington Insurance Company.

Lydia Allen
(1805 – 1854)

The mother of Thomas Wilson Dorr, Lydia Allen was descended from early setters of Rhode Island. She was also a descendent of Gabriel Bernon a French Huguenot. In 1804 she married Sullivan Dorr of Boston. Her brothers Crawford, Phillip and Zachariah Allen would all play a role during the Dorr Rebellion on the side of the Law and Order Party.