Comrade Fenner is a member of the First Rhode Island Light Artillery Veteran Association, and served as Executive Committee of Battery H in the regimental association a number of years. In 1891 he was chosen first-vice president of the association, and in 1892 president.
On the 27th of June, 1891, he called a meeting of the old members of Battery H, for the purpose of forming a veteran association of the battery. Starting with only four members, through his untiring efforts as secretary and treasurer, the association now numbers on its roll fifty members. He was unanimously chosen historian by his comrades of the battery. Having in his possession a very valuable war diary that he kept while in service it has formed the nucleus from which a large portion of the facts and incidents relating to the history of the battery have been gathered. This diary has also been the means of aiding many of his comrades and their widows in obtaining pensions, and likewise been of great service to the pension office in settling disputed cases.
Comrade Fenner is connected with various societies. He is a past chief patriarch of Narragansett Encampment, No. 1, I. O. O. F., and has held the office of recording secretary in Hope Lodge, No. 4, I. O. O. F. He is a past great sachem and past great prophet of the Great Council of the Improved Order of Red Men of Rhode Island, also holding the position of great mishewina in the Great Council for two years.
Comrade Fenner has been for several years in the employ of his brother, James M. Fenner, druggist, in the city of Providence.
FRANKLIN E. PAUL.
Corp. Franklin E. Paul, son of Captain Clark and May (Young) Paul, was born in Dover, N. H., Sept. 14, 1829. He received his education in the public schools of his native town. His father was a sea captain, and followed the sea for over forty years. At the age of fifteen he went to North Bridgewater, now Brockton, Mass., and lived on a farm for about a year, and then learned the trade of boot and shoemaking. After serving faithfully three years as an apprentice, he started out for himself, working in different towns in Massachusetts.
In 1858 he removed to Mansfield, Mass., and in September of that year he married Almira Alger, daughter of Edmund Alger, Esq., of that town. While busy in his calling, the tocsin of war resounded throughout the land, and aroused within him a spirit of loyalty and devotion to country, and he determined to enroll himself among his country’s defenders, and do all in his power to maintain the honor and integrity of free institutions and good government.
Corp. Franklin E. Paul.
On the 29th of September, 1862, he enlisted with five others from Mansfield, in Battery H, First Rhode Island Light Artillery, and was mustered into service Oct. 14, 1862. Leaving a good home, a devoted wife, and a little daughter, he offered all upon his country’s altar, and served loyally and faithfully with his battery until the termination of the war. He was promoted to corporal in 1865. He was mustered out with the battery June 28, 1865.