What a man – what a Rhode Island life.

In the pantheon of names that shaped this state, Henry Dexter Sharpe Jr. was certainly among them.

He left an astonishing legacy when he died last week at age 99.

Although low-key by nature, he was a spectacular aristocrat and industrialist, at the forefront of local philanthropy and a visionary of manufacturing.

During much of the 20th century, were someone to ask about the pillars of Rhode Island’s economy, the answer certainly would have included Henry’s extraordinary business – the great Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing company.

At one point, it was the world’s biggest machine tool manufacturer.

You know those massive red brick mill buildings, now repurposed as residential and commercial, that line 25 acres of Providence’s Promenade Street? For a time, that was to Providence what automobile plants were to Detroit – with Brown & Sharpe’s sprawling manufacturing complex at one point employing 12,000.

Although in time the sun set on the business, its trademarks sold to a Swedish firm in 2001, Henry Dexter Sharpe Jr. led the company as CEO during some of its prime years, from 1951 to 1979, and continued as chairman through 1996.

His father and grandfather had previously run the company, but it was still an extraordinary statement that “Hank” was elevated to the helm at 27. He went on to steer Brown & Sharpe toward more sophisticated products, including precise measuring instruments. Sharpe also charted overseas markets and moved the main facility into a massive, more modern structure in North Kingstown.

His achievements here certainly mark him as one of the prominent heirs to Samuel Slater, who in the 1790s created the American Industrial Revolution in his Pawtucket cotton mill.

And yet Henry Sharpe did not fit the image of a classic, hard-edged manufacturing guy.

His grandson Whitman Littlefield, who is a Providence Journal editor, remembers “Hank” reading him poetry not just as a child but even in adulthood.

Indeed, Sharpe would begin family Thanksgivings at his North Kingstown home by reciting poems, a favorite being one about a “cloud” of daffodils by William Wordsworth, which, in a reflection of Hank’s love of wilderness, speaks of “the bliss of solitude.”

Born in Providence in 1923, Henry had a notable New England education, graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy and Brown University.

He fought for his country during World War II in the Pacific, and was part of an extraordinary moment in history: he was on one of the first ships to sail into Tokyo Bay at war’s end. Men like Hank saw shores bristling with artillery that could have led to a bloodbath had Japan not surrendered.

Like so many World War II vets, Hank pivoted quickly to building the peace back home, starting at Brown & Sharpe as an apprentice in 1946. That started him on a      half-century journey with the firm.

His love of language, honed at Exeter, led to early thoughts of a career in journalism, and although he charted a different path, he kept a focus on writing in his life, both as a poet and as a longtime board member of The Providence Journal and RI Public Radio.

Such service was a big part of Hank’s legacy – he was among that classic handful of prominent state names who reliably serve in important community posts. Among other positions, he spent time on the boards of Brown University, the United Way and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.

As a renaissance man, Hank was also a lover of natural places, balancing the world of manufacturing with wilderness escapes – hiking and boating in New England with his family.

His son, Henry Sharpe III, now 67, remembers his father taking them often into New Hampshire’s White Mountains, going from hut to hut, including the well-known Lake of the Clouds cabin near Mount Washington.

“He felt lucky to be surrounded by a world with that majesty,” Henry III recalled.

That side of Hank drew him to build a family home not in the city but on a pond surrounded by pine woods in North Kingstown’s Pojac Point.                               

At times, he’d encounter other folks walking trails on the property, but Henry III said his dad never saw them as trespassers, instead thinking anyone who loved to be in nature like that should be welcomed.

Though one might assume someone of Hank’s background might prefer comfort, Henry III remembers his dad getting them outside in all seasons, at times canoeing Connecticut rivers even as small ice floes went by.

I reached Henry III in Sorrento, Maine, where the Sharpe family has had property for generations.

Hank and his wife Peggy, who survives him at age 94, owned wild land on about half of Maine’s Stave Island near Bar Harbor. They decided to keep it forever wild by putting a conservation easement on it.

For a time, Hank had to navigate controversy when Brown & Sharpe workers went on strike for four years, starting in 1981 when he was chairman. The battle continued in court for over a decade more.

But onetime Providence Journal reporter Gerald Carbone, who wrote a book about Brown & Sharpe, has said that labeling Hank anti-union was a bad rap. Sharpe, said Carbone, resisted moving the company out of state and tried to resolve the standoff with a pay-raise offer of 33% over three years.

Carbone’s book paints a portrait of an industrialist with deep community vision, deploying his financial success to enhance Rhode Island’s fabric through philanthropy.

Gary Sasse, who has worked here in government affairs for over 40 years, said he would place Henry Sharpe Jr. among the state’s most prominent forces for good in the last century, both industrially and civically.

“He was just an astounding citizen in every way,” said Sasse.

Hank’s son Henry III grew up around the culture of Brown & Sharpe and became an engineer himself focused on product design with an expertise in oceanography equipment. He said he was inspired by his dad’s passion for absolute quality in the company’s tools, sensors and measurement devices.

Henry III feels it speaks of his dad’s poetic side that while embracing perfection in Brown & Sharpe products, he loved the imperfections and quirks of both people and the natural world, the kind captured in poetry.

“You could imagine an industrialist being a classic type-A person,” Henry III said, “very proper and rigid, but he was just a nice guy who usually had a smile on his face, who welcomed others.”

Henry Dexter Sharpe Jr.’s humble side would no doubt be happy with that description.

But he was so much more than that.

What a life he led, and what a legacy he left.