Many years ago, what might have been a marriage of convenience or politics wound up being a real love match. Although the couple in this wonderful marriage is not quite as well known as their daughter, Girl Scout founder…
The Sprague family was powerful in Rhode Island society. Investing early in textile mills and printing the popular calico cloth of the late 1700s and 1800s in bulk brought them riches. But it also seems to have brought them a share of tragedy. Two of the Sprague brothers, William and Amasa, ran “Sprague Print Works” in Cranston in the 1860s. Business was booming and the Sprague family was growing tremendously wealthy thanks to the wonders of industrialization and the factory system. And then…

