Floyd Clayton Oulton fired several shots from his revolver before throwing the weapon into the brush near his Johnston home. The 31-year-old clerical worker had come to the United States from New Brunswick, Canada during the winter of 1923 and was now residing with his wife and seven children in a rental house belonging to Frank Willard Tillinghast.

Back outside, he moved his pig a good distance from the house and also relocated about 100 chickens and his barrel of home-brewed liquor. He then struck a match and set the residence ablaze that beautiful summer day of July 1, 1929.

When police caught word that a home was burning, they arrived at the scene to find Floyd calmly seated outside. They asked him where his wife Marie (Thibodeau) and their children were. “I don’t know,” he replied. “And I don’t care.” Floyd was arrested, charged with arson and held without bail. His family had managed to escape from the house through a window and had run to the safety of a neighboring property. While he was incarcerated, awaiting court proceedings, Frank Tillinghast took Marie and the children into his own home before readying another abode for them in Thornton.

Tillinghast, in addition to being the Oulton’s landlord and the owner of the torched house, was also an attorney. The 70-year-old native of Richmond, Rhode Island had been employed as a school teacher for four years before deciding to study law in the office of Pardon Tillinghast. He went on to graduate from Boston University School of Law and was admitted to the RI Bar in 1881. Tillinghast resided with his wife, Grace (Peckham), on Morgan Avenue in Johnston. The great old Tillinghast mansion that stood there would finally be sold out of the family in 1938.

In addition to his law partnership in Tillinghast, Morrissey & Flynn, the attorney was a board member of Guerin Mills in Woonsocket, president of the Tillinghast-Stiles Group and a Republican lobbyist for the State House.

When it came time for the judge to hear Floyd Oulton’s case, Tillinghast took the stand to ask for clemency. He described Floyd as a steady worker and good father when he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol. He also explained to the judge that Floyd’s wife and children – ranging in age from four months to seven years old – would be forced to go without many necessities if he were imprisoned and unable to support to them. Marie then took the stand to beg for her husband’s freedom.

After the case of the State of Rhode Island versus Floyd C. Oulton for burning a dwelling house was heard, the judge released the defendant with the understanding that he and his family would return to Canada.

The Oultons left the United States and went back home where Marie gave birth to a son they named Percy on June 28, 1936. The following year, the child became the second of theirs to die from the effects of pneumonia.

Tillinghast retired from practicing law in 1933. On the night of April 30, 1948 he died at his home – pneumonia having claimed him as well.

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