Photo of Frederick Hoxie as provided to Find a Grave by Joan Ackermann Renfrow, late genealogist.

While many American households were tuning their radios to the sounds of George Cohen and figuring out how to make sweets without sugar and meals without meat, Frederick Jerome Hoxie was tinkering in the private laboratory of his Warwick home.

Born in Phenix on May 21, 1871 , Frederick was the son of Jerome Hoxie, a partner in the chain of very successful Pawtuxet Valley grocery stores known as “Hoxie Brothers.” As a young man, he took a managerial position in one of his father’s stores but realized it wasn’t his calling. Electricity fascinated him and he went on to attend the Boston School of Technology. He later invented a number of electrical appliances including flashing business signs. With others of the same talents, he founded the Phenix Electric Company.

As the husband of Anne Maybell Shippee, and the father of Dorothea and Stephen, Frederick supported his family by working as an electrical engineer and inspector as well as a mill technician for a Boston insurance association. After he developed a blast preventative and a system to prevent dust explosions in mills, he quickly became known as a leading authority on dust explosions inside grain elevators. Numerous scientific societies invited him to present his research and technical magazines eagerly published his work. However, the world of science and chemistry fascinated Frederick too much for him to zero in on one thing and he also became a national authority on plant diseases and the way dry rot affected timber.

During World War I, Frederick busied himself with numerous experiments in his home laboratory. In charge of the research lab at Warwick Mills, he was one of the developers of balloon cloth which the Warwick Mills produced a great deal of for the United States government.

While in his late fifties, his home experiments mostly centered on agriculture. He came up with numerous theories to test, one being that a moist environment stimulated plant growth. By placing several pipes fitted with nozzles around his garden and feeding water into them, he invented a substitute for natural rain that proved his theory.

Frederick died at his home in Hoxie Court on Aug. 19, 1929. Only a few years later, his son would make a name for himself as an artist commissioned for President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, a New Deal program to fund the arts. Stephen, who owned Hoxie's Paint Store in Stonington had worked as an automobile painter as well as an interior decorator. During World War I he worked for the US Navy, helping to develop camouflage techniques for merchant ships.

A graduate of East Greenwich Academy and the RI School of Design, Stephen completed 82 paintings for the WPA project “The Index of American Design." Subjects of simplicity included a stoneware pitcher, cider jug, preserve jar and clay vessel.

As an artist, Stephen left the world with an amazing scattered collection of landscapes, still lifes, maritime art, map and book illustrations. His water colors included “Muddy Water” and “April Rain.” His oils included “Salt Marsh” and “Winter Sleigh.” Among his pen and ink creations were “Ephraim Williams House” and “Amos Sheffield House.”

Merchant, scientist and artist – grandfather, father and son – the Hoxie men of Warwick left legacies emanating from everything they touched.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.