Biography of Elwin E. Young

For many years a leader in the drug trade in Wickford, Rhode Island, Elwin E. Young holds a position of responsibility and trust in community life here. There is scarcely any field of endeavor in which he is not keenly interested if it has to do with the advancement of the best interests of his town and State; and Mr. Young is widely known.

The family from which he is descended is an old and honored one in New England, the line having been traced back, here and in Europe, to 1066, the year of the Conquest. The great-grandfather of Elwin E. Young was Othniel Young, who made his home in that part of Rhode Island that borders on the State of Massachusetts, in what is now the town of Burrillville. He served as a private in the War of the American Revolution, in which he was a member of a Providence company in 1776, and was drawing a pension from the government on March 4, 1831, when he was seventy-six years of age. He made his home with his son, Alpheus, in Burrillville, with whom he was living in 1840, then eighty-three years old. He had several children, one of whom was Zebeda, born April 30, 1780, who made his home in Burrillville, where he was a farmer and land owner. Later he lived in Mendon, Massachusetts, near Blackstone, the birthplace of his grandson, Elwin E. Young. At Mendon, Zebeda Young was a basket maker until his death on December 15, 1872, and was buried in Mendon. Among the children of Zebeda and his wife, Phila (Alby) Young, who died May 15, 1867, in Mendon, and is there buried, there was one child named Mowry, born November 12, 1829, who lived in Blackstone, Massachusetts, and who was the father of Elwin E. Young.

Elwin E. Young was born in Blackstone, Massachusetts, on November 9, 1856, son of Mowry and Sophronia Caroline (Chamberlain) Young. He received his early education in the schools of Blackstone, Massachusetts, and served his apprenticeship for three years in drug stores in Blackstone. He spent seven years as drug clerk in Providence, Rhode Island, with Dr. Douglass, Fred Lothrop, and Dr. Duffy, and in Wickford with Stephen H. Farnum. In June, 1889, he opened his own store, which he has continued for forty years, in the course of which he has served his customers faithfully and well and has sold the best in drugs, medicines, and chemicals.

Along with his work in the professional world, Mr. Young has spent much of his time, until very recently, in musical work, of which he is fond. He was especially interested in vocal and orchestral activities, to which he gave a great deal of his attention.

Elwin E. Young married Mary Urell, of Brooklyn, New York, who was residing at Wickford at the time. Although for years she has been in delicate health, she has been a real helpmate to her husband.

Source: Carroll, Charles. Rhode Island: Three Centuries of Democracy, vol 3 of 4. New York: Lewis historical Pub. Co., 1932.