David Gardiner Stillman was born in the town of North Stonington, Conn., July 2, 1828, and died June 20, 1907.
He was one of nine children born to Phineas and Thankful Gardiner Stillman. While young, his parents moved to Potter Hill, R. L, where a large part of his boyhood days were passed. In 1849, he married Abbie Wilber of Hopkinton, R. I., with whom he lived until her death in 1903.
In 1862, Mr. Stillman entered the machine shop of Cottrell & Babcock, and he remained in the employ of the firm and its successors until four years ago, when, health failing him, he had to retire from active labors.
In 1864, two years after his marriage, he built him a home one Morgan Street; in Pawcatuck, in which he and his wife lived for almost forty years. Since the decease of Mrs. Stillman, he had lived with his son, Alberti. Early in life, he showed a tendency to religious thought. He professed faith in Christ and united with the First Hopkinton Seventh-day Baptist church. Later he took a letter to the Pawcatuck Seventh-day Baptist church of Westerly, of which he has been a consistent member, and in the welfare of which he was greatly interested. It is another case where a long and useful life has been lived, almost entirely in one community. From what his acquaintances say of him, we consider that he was a man of gentle and most kind disposition, a lover of the home, and not one of those who are trying to keep constantly in view of the public. He was greatly interested in the history of the Stillman family, and loved to talk of it and write about it. He was thoroughly interested in the great questions that have been before the American people, and took sides against evil in every form.
There are now left of the family of which he was a member, but one, Eliza, wife of Charles A. Stillman. Of his own children, there are Alberti R., of Pawcatuck, and Myrton E., of Providence. There had been a slow gradual failing for some four years, but much more rapid the last year. He fell asleep very quietly, and apparently without pain, June 20, a little after eight o'clock in the morning.
A good man, whose influence was felt in community and church, has gone, and others arise to take his place and serve their day and generation as well as he.
C. A. B.
