Hazard family

Members of the Hazard family were among the first settlers of the State of Rhode Island. Descendants have been known for military achievement, business success, philanthropy, and broad social activism spanning such causes as abolition of slavery, treatment of the insane and alcoholics, family planning, and innovative employee programs.

The family fortune derived largely from its textile manufacturing business at Peace Dale, Rhode Island, mining, railroad, and chemical interests, including the Solvay Process Company.

Many of the descendants of the historic Hazard family still live in Rhode Island today and are actively engaged in their communities. Today the Patriarch is Charles Michael Hazard, an investor and venture capitalist in the Boston area and founder of Westfield Capital.

Hazards have been known through generations for many contributions:

The family in Central New York was long active in May Memorial Unitarian Church, Syracuse, which linked many social activists. The family has been known especially for social concerns such as abolition of slavery, treatment of the insane and of alcoholics, as well for innovative employee programs. Guild Hall, built in 1890 by the Solvay Process Company to serve as a community center, provided the first public library facility which served the high school as well. Guild Hall was the first of five such buildings the company constructed for health and recreational use of the entire community.

The family's Peace Dale textile manufacturing company was one of the first in America (1878) to distribute a percentage of profits to employees. Mrs. Frederick R. Hazard (Dora G. Sedgwick) of Solvay was daughter of the prominent Syracuse lawyer and abolitionist Charles B. Sedgwick. The Sedgwick residence was a landmark designed by important American architect, Alexander Jackson Davis. Dora Sedgwick Hazard was an early American proponent of family planning, an organizer in central New York of the National Women's Party, and of programs for African-American young people (which evolved into the Dunbar Center). Mrs. Hazard founded the Solvay Guild in 1887 and was instrumental in establishing its many local programs in areas of education, public health medical and dental clinics, day care center, sewing, cooking and Americanization classes, and the first kindergartens not merely in Solvay but in Syracuse. The Hazard Branch of the Onondaga County Library System contains a memorial plaque recalling the public service of Dora Sedgwick Hazard.

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