Alfred Byron Arnold, son of Ray and Caroline Matilda (Arnold) Arnold, was born on his grandfather's homestead in the town of Warwick, Kent county, Rhode Island, October 2, 1842, and began his education in the nearby district school. Seventy-six years have since intervened, and for the past quarter of a century he has lived in the house which has been the home of his father for eighteen years previous to his death. His education, commenced in the district school, was continued in the schools of the village of Coventry; Pierce Academy, Middleboro, Massachusetts; Providence Conference Seminary of East Greenwich, Rhode Island; Rhode Island State Normal School, at Bristol; and Bryant and Stratton Business College. There were periods of teaching between these advanced courses; from the year 1861, when he began teaching in the Colvintown School, until 1982, he was an educator well known and very highly regarded. His schools in the Pawtucket [sic] Valley, beginning with Colvintown, were The Plains and the Potowomut schools, his course at State Normal School following his service in the last named. The years following the Normal School work he was teacher in schools at Slatersville, Hope, Coventry Center, Washington, Anthony, Quidnick, Centerville, Chepachet, Middletown, Bristol and Warren, Rhode Island, and Canton, Massachusetts. After two years at Canton, he spent one winter as an instructor in Bryant and Stratton's Business College, Providence, going thence to Marlboro, Massachusetts, as a principal of the Washington Street School, where he served for three years. He then returned to the Pawtuxet Valley and the home farm, but continued teaching in Coventry, Phenix, and school in old Warwick. He continued as a teacher until June, 1892, then retired, after thirty-one years of active service. Two years later, in 1894, his parents died, and upon his shoulders the care of the estate then devolved.
For one year Mr. Arnold was a member of Coventry Town Council, and since 1907 has been a director of the Centerville National Bank. Since 1880 he has been a member of the Phenix Baptist Church, and in 1918 was elected clerk of the church for the thirty-eighth time. Since 1908 he has been a deacon of the church.
Mr. Arnold is living practically retired, but conducts a truck garden in order to occupy his leisure time. Politically he is a Republican, and an advocate of prohibition. He married, August 16, 1866, Susan I. Johnson, of Warwick, Rhode Island, and a daughter of Palmer T. and Isabel (Remington) Johnson. Mr. and Mrs. Arnold are the parents of a son and daughter: Alfred Ray, born August 1, 1873, died August 16, 1873; Bel Arnold, born May 11, 1875, married, September 22, 1898, Herbert Allen Matteson, of Coventry, Rhode Island; they are the parents of one son, Raymond Arnold, born September 15, 1914.
The foregoing record shows Mr. Arnold as a man who has devoted the years of his youthful and matured manhood to the furtherance of the cause of education. Although, as with all who labor for the public good, results are hard to tabulate or even estimate, it is certain that his work was performed in a spirit of devotion, and to the thousands of youths who sat under his instruction he has imparted some of his own spirit of loyalty, progressiveness and ambition to excel in any task undertaken.
