Myra, Nina, Betty: Sisters by each other's side
In 1897, Patrick Horgan, the owner of the Thorndike Hotel that stood at the current site of BankNewport, built three summer cottages for rent in the block south of the hotel. Although they were first called the Thorndike Cottages, he later named them after his daughters. The namesakes were Myra, for his eldest, Almira; Nina for Antonia; and Betty, the youngest, for Elizabeth.
The sisters were children when the cottages opened. Myra was a teenager, Nina was six years younger and Betty was the baby, born in 1896. Their two brothers, Harry and T. Francis, were not yet born.
Despite their father’s extensive investments in Jamestown, the children were raised in Newport. The boys went to Rogers High School; the girls were sent to Elmhurst Academy of the Sacred Heart in Providence. After high school, Betty went to the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts; Nina traveled to Jette St. Pierre School in Belgium and studied under the mesdames of the Sacred Heart in San Remo, Italy.
When the girls wed, they moved away from southern Rhode Island.
Myra wed John Carey, a Fall River contractor, and moved to Massachusetts. Betty’s husband, Dr. Frank Duvally, also worked in Fall River, where the couple lived from their marriage in 1917 until his death in 1941.
Betty then returned to Newport. Her two daughters, Betsy Duvally Bessinger and Myra Duvally, became leaders in the artistic community. Betsy was known for her sculptures and paintings and Myra helped establish a music festival and garden tour.
Nina married Benjamin McLyman, a prominent attorney, and made Providence her home. Unlike her sisters, Nina and her husband retained strong ties to Jamestown.
McLyman, a Newport native, was a graduate of Brown University with a law degree from Harvard. While he was in college, he gave golf lessons and oversaw the links at the Jamestown Golf and Country Club. As his law practice and prestige grew, he was appointed assistant attorney general of Rhode Island when he was about 40. In 1930, he was elected attorney general, an office he had until 1933.
The McLymans continued to make Jamestown their summer home. After Horgan’s death in 1932, they acquired the Three Sisters as a portion of Nina’s inheritance. They sold most of the land, which included frontage to Narragansett Bay, back to the family in 1937, retaining the northernmost house, Myra, at 23 Conanicus Ave.
McLyman was politically active at both the state and local levels. In 1937, the municipally owned Jamestown & Newport Ferry Company faced a deficit of about $20,000, which is the equivalent of $437,000 in 2024.
The citizens of Jamestown would have been responsible for the debt, and the suggested solution was to shut down service on the West Passage. The mayor of Newport and the president of the North Kingstown Town Council, however, urged the state to grant a subsidy to cover the loss. Gov. Robert Quinn appointed a fact-finding commission, under the chairmanship of McLyman, to study the situation. The commission recommended the subsidy.
From 1939-41, McLyman served as public utility administrator of Rhode Island; he also was appointed as director of civilian defense in Providence in ’41.
In June 1951, the state established the Jamestown Ferry Authority to take over operations of the East Passage service. McLyman was chairman of the authority in August 1954 when Hurricane Carol swept through the bay, causing the worst weather damage since 1938. His memo to ferry employees expressing appreciation of their outstanding performance contains a detailed description of the preparations and emergency actions of all the staff.
The McLymans continued to summer in Jamestown until 1967 when they sold Myra. They remained in Providence in their full-time home until both died four years later.
