century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

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Roderick Terry

Clergyman

Centurion, 1882–1933

Born 1 April 1849 in New York (Brooklyn), New York

Died 28 December 1933 in Newport, Rhode Island

Buried Island Cemetery, Newport, Rhode Island

Proposed by Henry G. Marquand and Henry Codman Potter

Elected 1 April 1882 at age thirty-three

Century Memorial

Roderick Terry had been member of the Century for 51 years, a record overtopped by only four other members of the club. He was one of Newport’s best-known citizens. Himself lineal descendant of that distinguished personage of New England’s colonial days, Governor William Bradford of Massachusetts, the early history of the colonies was Dr. Terry’s primary avocation. He took the lead in preserving colonial relics and landmarks and was always an inspiring participant in the Newport Historical Society’s proceedings. When it is remembered also that Dr. Terry was an assiduous book-collector, an active participant in the religious, artistic, charitable and athletic affairs of his community, one gets the picture of a many-sided American, happily set apart from that fairly numerous fraternity of his later days, for whom history and human achievement began in 1918.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1934 Century Association Yearbook