Nicholas Brown was born on July 28, 1729 and was the son of James and Hope (Power) Brown and the eldest of the four brothers (Nicholas, Joseph, John, and Moses) who became in the closing years of the eighteenth century the leading merchants and citizens of Rhode Island.
James Brown and his brother Obadiah had established a general store in Providence, and in 1739 controlled the movements of eight vessels in the West India trade. In that year James Brown died.
Nicholas Brown's father died in 1739 and after his death the business was carried on by Obadiah, at first alone, and then, as they grew up, with four of the sons of James as assistants and partners under the firm name Obadiah Brown & Company. At the death of the uncle in 1762, the four brothers continued the business as Nicholas Brown & Company.
The firm attained international standing during the years between 1762 and the Revolution. Its ventures were extended from the West Indies to London, Marseilles, Nantes, Copenhagen, and Hamburg, while at home its members were active in the development of local manufactures. It is credited with having brought about the change in the spermaceti candle business from the household to the factory stage of development by the gathering of all who had been previously working at the manufacture in their homes into a building erected for the purpose on the outskirts of Providence.
When the increase in the business there and in Newport brought about a scarcity of head matter and spermaceti oil, a competitive struggle for this choice product of the whale ensued between the Brown interests and the wealthy Jewish manufacturers of Newport. Useless competition was avoided by the formation in 1761 of a "union" or United Company of spermaceti candle manufacturers of Providence and Newport, with associates in Boston and Philadelphia.
In 1763 the combination was renewed and the Browns were the leading members of the organization. The agreements fixed the price of purchase, provided for preventing the establishment of new manufactories, and designated and limited the dealers in oil to be patronized by the associates. These documents are said to record the earliest monopolistic combination made in America. The effort on the part of the brothers in or soon after 1764 to establish an iron manufactory in Rhode Island to utilize the ore dug from the pits at Cranston resulted in the buildings of the "Furnace Hope" at Scituate, where until the last decade of the century a successful industry was carried on by the firm and certain associates.
Pig iron and articles for their trading cargoes were made at the furnace, and in the Revolution cannon of all sizes up to eighteen pounders were cast for the Congress. The firm was interested in distilling; and in the French Wars and later, Nicholas and John Brown were large shareholders in various successful privateering ventures. Though the Newport merchants who were their contemporaries were successful in the Guinea trade, yet the interest of Nicholas Brown & Company in the "triangular voyage" seems to have been only occasional in its character.
During the non-importation proceedings in 1769 Nicholas Brown was prominently engaged in the American interest; in the Revolution he served a secret committee of Congress by using his ships and foreign connections for the importation of clothing and munitions for the soldiers; in the struggle in Rhode Island over the Constitution he exercised a strong influence in favor of adoption.
In 1767 it was the personal contributions and the guarantee of the pledges of fellow citizens by Nicholas and his brother Joseph that determined Providence as the location of Rhode Island College, afterward, because of the benefactions of a later member of the family, to be known as Brown University. It was under the oversight of the firm that the first college building, now University Hall, was erected on a piece of ground formerly a Brown family possession. Nicholas was a prominent benefactor, too, of the Baptist Society of Providence.
He died May 29, 1791.
The chief achievement of Nicholas Brown was accomplished in 1771, when he helped to convince Baptist authorities to locate a permanent home for the College in his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1804, the College was renamed Brown University because of a gift made by Brown's son Nicholas Brown II.
Nicholas Brown was a member of the Baptist Society of Providence.
Quotes from others about the person
When Brown died in 1791, the Rev. Dr. Stillman of Boston gave a eulogy:
"He was the affectionate husband, the tender father, the compassionate master, the dutiful son, the loving brother, and the steady, faithful friend. He took much pains, by reading and by conversation, to inform his mind, and had acquired much general knowledge. But religion was his favorite subject. To Christianity in general, as founded on a fulness of evidence, and to its peculiar doctrines, he was firmly attached.
He was a Baptist from principle, and a lover of good men of all denominations. Blessed with opulence, he was ready to distribute to public and private uses. In his death the college in this place, this church and society, the town of Providence, and the general interests of religion, learning, and liberality have lost a friend indeed. "
His tombstone records the otherwise forgotten fact that "His stature was large; his personal appearance manly and noble. "
Nicholas Brown married first, on May 2, 1762, Rhoda Jenckes, who died December 16, 1783, survived by two of their ten children, Nicholas and Hope, who married Thomas Poynton Ives.
1749–1807
1731–1795
1783–1783
1741–1783
1777–1787
1766–1785
1701–1792
1771–1778
1775–1791
1773–1855
1769–1841
1763–1768
1778–1783
1738–1836
1736–1803
1733–1785
1724–175
1697–1739
