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Another Exeter Strong Man

This article was written by J. Earl Clauson and published on May 27, 1937, in the Evening Bulletin newspaper of Providence, Rhode Island, under the heading “These Plantations.” The untitled piece reports on another strong man from Exeter.

After due investigation, we are glad to accept the suggestion of a reader that we add the portrait of Reynolds Lillibridge to our gallery of Rhode Island strong men. He seems to qualify by all the tests of unusual physique, tremendous strength and good nature to hang beside the portraits of Stout Jeffrey Hazard, the Bitgood boys, Briggs and others who have received the accolade of mention in this department.

There are three schools of thought as to pronunciation of his first name. In Exeter they call it Runnels. The Davisville style is Rainolds (as in rain, the gentle dew from heaven) and in Wickford it’s Rennolds. Suit yourself.

Reynolds was raised on the Lillibridge farm in Exeter, along the Ten Rod Road. There he grew and he grew, up and down and sideways, until it became apparent that he was destined to become Exeter’s white hope.

His height at maturity varies from six feet two to six eight, according to who tells it. Our best judgment from what we’ve heard is that he was around six feet four, which is too tall for any doorways in the older house of his native town.

He developed tremendous shoulders and a deep chest. These are Lillibridge trademarks to this day. Even when they don’t attain altitude they are “big little men,” as one of them remarked.

On this framework, Reynolds and nature co-operated to put as pretty a network of flexible, useful muscle as you would see in a day’s automobile ride. It was handy for heavy work. Even in his later years Reynolds Lillibridge could do as much in the field as two ordinary men – such work, for example, as walking beside a haycart all day and pitching on a whole cock to the forkful. Try it if you don’t think that’s something.

He was still a young man when the Civil War broke out and he enlisted, serving three years, from ’61 to ’63. He rated as a cavalryman, but worked with the artillery. It was while in this service that he performed possibly his greatest feat.

One day when the big guns were being speeded into position for a battle the gun he served bogged down to the hubs in a mudhole. The cannon actually rested on the earth. After the horses had tried vainly to yank it out the captain came around, took a look and remarked:

“Well, this here’s one cannon that won’t be in the fight.”

“Don’t say that, Captain,” Reynolds answered. “You just touch up those horses again and let me give one more try.”

So the captain touched them up and Reynolds caught hold under the cannon and, putting forth all he had, lifted it clear of the mud. That’s a hard one to beat.

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He was pretty well known throughout a large stretch of Rhode Island because after the war he became candy salesman for a Providence wholesale house. His job was to drive from Providence to Westerly, touching all the country stores, with samples of striped sticks of all sorts in glass jars.

He had a pair of black horses and knew how to get the best out of them. Good-natured and slow of speech, he was universally liked. It took a lot of prodding to draw the thunder and lightning out; at the same time those who knew him realized he wasn’t afraid of anything.

One evening at Westerly he went with some customers to watch a well-advertised boxing match. One of the contestants was a big, powerful Negro. What the other was like the patrons never found out because he failed to show.

The Negro, anxious to give the crowd its money’s worth, voiced a challenge to anybody in the house. When that failed he offered $10 to anybody who would stay in the ring three rounds. Again getting no response, he offered $50 for a real fight.

Reynolds Lillibridge not only was fast, but knew a bit about boxing. One reason why he might not have been a great prizefighter was because he lacked the killer instinct. But on this occasion, yielding to the urging of his companions, he accepted the offer.

The Negro looked a bit doubtful as the candy salesman stripped and jumped into the ring. Then he drove in with both fists flying. Lillibridge let him land a couple before, unharnessing a good one, he sent it home. The challenger went to the floor and stayed there.

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He could wrestle as well as fight. There is the story of one whole afternoon he put to meeting all comers, whether at Beach Pond on the last Saturday in June where such diversions were popular, or at the town hall on Pine Hill on election day nobody quite remembers. But he “rassled” the whole afternoon and wound up fresh.

It was at Pine Hill that he put “Stunt” Green in his place. “Stunt” was the leader of a tough crowd, himself the toughest of them, skilled in rough and tumble, including biting ears and gouging eyes.

Reynolds had just driven on the lot in his farm cart when “Stunt” lurched over and said he was going to show him. He waited to take Lillibridge at a disadvantage as he got down from the cart, but Reynolds landed on the nigh side of the wagon, came around the horse’s head and struck “Stunt” just once. The Green vote was not counted that day.

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In his three years of war service he was captured twice and saw the inside of Libby Prison both times. Once he escaped. The other time he was exchanged for two Confederate prisoners, which considering everything was not a bad deal.

He didn’t like to talk much about the war after he got home. When visitors pressed him he would take his old service cap off the nail and show where a musket bullet had gone through.

“That’s what it was like,” he would say.

He lived to be about 80 years old. A daughter survived, and two grandsons, to say nothing of Cousin Lillibridges scattered all across this fair land to the Pacific.

Original story by J. Earl Clauson, originally published in the Providence Evening Bulletin under the heading "These Plantations". Later collected into a book of the same name that was printed in 1937 by The Roger Williams Press (E. A. Johnson Company).