Researching the Jones’ family history has been like browsing through an American history textbook on colonial New England. I just discovered our 8th great grandparents, Richard (1605-1679) and Katherine Marbury (1610-1687) Scott. They were born in Herefordshire, England, married in 1632, and arrived in Massachusetts in 1634.
Richard was a shoemaker. They became Quakers, a religion not accepted by their Puritan neighbors. The Scott family with 10 children found refuge in Rhode Island. Katherine was once given 10 lashes with a 3-pronged whip by the Puritans in 1658. Her older sister, Anne Marbury married William Hutchinson (Our 8th great aunt and uncle). They were banished to Rhode Island also because she held women’s Bible studies in her home and preached her own religion to her followers. She is one of the first women preachers in America. Her family ended up in New York State where most of the family were massacred by Indians, with one daughter taken captive for 4 years. They had 15 children. Read their story in this blog that I have borrowed. http://marybarrettdyer.blogspot.com/2014/10/life-sketch-of-katherine-marbury-scott.html
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The five generations of the Brown (or Browne) family are the most interesting and successful ancestors that I’ve found so far. Like most of our relatives who arrived in Massachusetts from England, they rebelled against the rules of the tyrannical Puritans and either moved (or were banished) to Rhode Island. Let’s start with a short history lesson.
THE PURITANS From 1620 to 1640, the Great Migration brought 20,000 Englishmen and their families to New England. They were mostly Puritans who wanted to reform the Anglican Church from within and purify it of its Roman Catholic practices and hierarchy. The Puritans formed a society ruled by their church leaders that governed every aspect of the lives of their followers, including the color and style of clothing, everyday behavior, and church rituals. Punishments for infractions were severe—fines, public humiliation, whipping, or death. Studying this period in school, I never suspected we had ancestors who were part of this movement, but our past is loaded with them. EARLY GENERATIONS OF THE BROWNE FAMILY Chaddus Browne (1600-1665), our 8X great grandfather, was the first ordained Baptist minister in the colonies and served the First Baptist Church of Rhode Island. He was born in Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, and emigrated to Massachusetts with his wife, Elizabeth Sharparow, and their children on the ship the Martin in July 1638. The family moved to the Providence Plantation of Rhode Island to join Roger Williams after having religious difference with the Puritan community. Reverend Browne was active in civic matters as well. He was the first signer of the Rhode Island Charter brought back from England by Roger Williams and one of the 39 who signed an agreement forming a government in Providence in 1640. Rhode Island was the first colony to separate church and state and the first to to establish a democratic government. Chaddus’ son, John, and grandson, Elder James Brown, were also church leaders and active in the governing of the colony. Our family line runs through Elder James Brown’s sister Martha, who was married to Rhode Island Royal Governor Joseph Jenckes III (our 6th great grandparents). Elder James’ sons, James (1698-1739) and Obadiah (1712-1762), were merchants with a fleet of ships trafficking in cocoa, rum, molasses, and slaves. Their trading enterprise formed the basis of the family fortune for many years to come. Brothers James and Obadiah attempted their first venture into the slave trade in 1736 with the sloop the Mary(perhaps named for their mother), but it proved unprofitable. Captain Brown did not try again. They were also the first merchants to trade directly with England and bypassed the traditional routes with Boston and Newport. James died at sea in 1739, leaving a wife and four young sons ages one to nine. THE SONS OF PROVIDENCE Obadiah retired from sailing after John’s death to raise his four nephews: Nicholas (1729-1791), Joseph (1733-1785), John (1736-1803), and Moses (1738-1836), known in Providence as Nicky, Josie, John, and Mosey (our first cousins 6X removed) or sometimes shortened to just Nick, Joe, John, and Moe. Uncle Obadiah trained each of them in the business and formed Browne & Co, but none of the boys received a formal education. Obadiah’s own four sons died before reaching adulthood. Their business interests ranged from a rum distillery, a candle factory, mining, an iron works, a slaughterhouse, a chocolate mill, shipbuilding, banking, and much more. Their fleet of ships reached all over the globe. The slave trade was a minor portion of their enterprises and was never particularly profitable for them. In 1759, they made a second venture into the slave trade by dispatching another ship, the Wheel of Fortune, in 1759, but it was captured by French raiders and they suffered another loss. After Obadiah’s death in 1762, the brothers formed their own company together to become the Brothers of Providence. Rhode Island emerged as the #1 slave trade colony in America, controlling 60-90% of the market. Yes, the Northern states owned slaves well into the early 1800s until it was no longer a profitable venture, mainly because their economy turned to industry and away from the agricultural society that the southern colonies maintained with cotton and other crops. The first slaves in New England were Native Americans captured in two early wars between Indians and colonists, but then the slave ships arrived from Africa. Traders there, including the Brown brothers, engaged in what came to be known as the slave triangle. Rum distilled in New England was shipped to Africa and exchanged there for slaves, who were chained below deck and transported to the West Indies, where they were traded for molasses and sugar to make more rum in Providence. John continued trading despite the anti-slavery laws passed in 1774, 1784, and 1787. 1774: Rhode Island prohibited the importation of slaves. 1784: Rhode Island began the gradual emancipation of slaves. 1787: Rhode Island forbade residents from participating in the slave trade. None of the anti-slavery laws seemed to have been enforced consistently. By 1767, only John remained committed to the business of transporting slaves as the the other brothers had begun to pursue their own individual interests. NICHOLAS The oldest brother went out on his own to concentrate on a factory that manufactured spermaceti candles made from whale oil and the Hope Furnace (named after their mother), a factory that made pig iron. The iron factory made cannons used during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. He married Rhoda Jenckes—there’s that surname again—and had ten children. He engaged in civic affairs by supporting funding the paving of streets in Providence, a library, and the first building at the College of Rhode Island. During the Revolution, he supported the Continental Army by providing gunpowder and food. Nicholas had a desk made by cabinet maker Daniel Spencer. It was a nine-and-half foot mahogany desk and bookcase. In 1989, It was sold by Christie’s Auctioneers for $12,1000,000, the highest price ever paid up to that time for a piece of furniture. The money was spent for the restoration of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University. The desk is now in a private collection. JOSEPH Second brother, Joseph, left the family businesses in 1784. He was the most politically active of the four and focused on his profession as an architect. He designed the Meeting House of the First Baptist Church and University Hall at Brown University. The four brothers had donated some of the land owned by their ancestor, Chaddus Brown, to Rhode Island College. When the College was moved to its new location in 1770, it changed its name to Brown University, which is now a prestigious Ivy League school. It was named after Nicholas Brown, Jr., the son of oldest brother Nicholas, for his financial contributions to the school. Joseph was also a scientist and taught astronomy there. He married Elizabeth Power and raised two daughters and two sons. JOHN On his own, John Brown owned several slave ships and was also co-financier of many other slave trading ventures. He maintained throughout his life that “slavery was right, just and lawful, and consequently practiced every day.” He believed that America was doing Africans a favor by removing them from what he described as their “barbaric homeland”. In 1765, one of his ships, the Sally, docked on the African coast for nine months, much longer than usual for a slave ship. It held 196 slaves. Nineteen of them died on board and a twentieth was left for dead on the dock before they sailed. On the seventh day out at sea, the captives rioted against the crew. The insurrection left eight slaves dead and several wounded. During the voyage, the captives were so despondent over losing their freedom that they drowned themselves or died of starvation and disease. The venture was another unprofitable disaster. John was a leader in The Gaspee Affair, considered by historians as the colonists’ first act of defiance, in 1772 in which a British ship, the Gaspee, was boarded, looted,, and burned. The incident is considered a precursor to the American Revolution. Another of his profitable activities was privateering by raiding other ships. A politician as well as a merchant, he persuaded the Rhode Island General Assembly to create a Rhode Island Navy in June, 1775, as the American Revolution was heating up. John Brown’s shipbuilding company sold the United States its first warship, the USS Providence. It participated in sixty battles, sometimes commanded by John Paul Jones, and captured forty British ships before it was dismantled in 1779 to keep it from falling into British hands. He was a principle supplier of war materials to the Continental Army and made a fortune. He was the first president of the Providence Bank, the first bank in the colony of Rhode Island and the fifth in the United States, founded by him together with his brother Moses. It has now been absorbed into the Bank of America. In 1775, he was elected as the Treasurer for Brown University and continued to serve in that position for the next twenty-one years. He served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1799-1802 and advocated for continuing the practice of slavery. His home, the John Brown House, designed by his architect brother Joseph, is now a national landmark and museum. President John Quincy Adams called it “the most magnificent and elegant private mansion that I have ever seen on this continent.” John sent the first Rhode Island ship, the General Washington, to Canton, China in 1787, another of his profit-making trading ventures. A large man at 6 foot 3 inches tall and 300 pounds, he was devoted to his wife Sarah Smith and his son and three daughters. MOSES Moses was the youngest of the four brothers and is my favorite of all the ancestors I have found so far. He began his business career apprenticed to his Uncle Obadiah as a clerk. He married one of Obadiah’s daughters, Anna, his first cousin. In his grief after her death in 1773, he left the Baptist Church of his family and embraced the teachings of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. Their beliefs included the abolition of slavery. He freed his own six slaves, promising to see that the young slaves would be educated and gave them each an acre of land on his farm. His brother, John, sent out a ship called the Hope in defiance of a 1794 federal law prohibiting the importation of slaves, a law which Moses had helped to write. Moses, along with the Providence Abolition Society, turned him in, so John was forced to forfeit one of his ships. Moses continued to work for the abolition of slavery and provided other slaves and free blacks with financial and legal assistance. His son Obadiah taught literacy to Blacks in Providence. He opposed the ratification of the U. S. Constitution at first because it did not include freeing slaves and the document was not initially passed in Rhode Island, but Moses did eventually change his mind because there was the possibility of adding future amendments. The two brothers, finding themselves on opposite sides of the issue, clashed openly in newspaper editorials over the slavery issue. Using pseudonyms, they each supported their positions: John as the Citizen for the Chronicle and Moses as the Monitor for the Providence Gazette. John saw the potential of a Civil War pitting the industrial North against the agrarian South by abolishing slavery while Moses supported the Quaker position of slavery as immoral. John wanted slaveholders to be compensated for the loss of their property if slaves were freed. Moses seemed to have no problem importing cotton picked by slaves for his textile mill. Another accomplishment of the youngest brother was the opening of the first textile factory in America, the Slater Mill, run on water power. That invention is credited as ushering in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. He advocated for good sanitation to prevent yellow fever, supported smallpox vaccinations in Rhode Island, helped to found the Rhode Island Historical Society, and fought for peace during the War of 1812. Other organizations that he assisted in establishing are the Rhode Island Bible Society, the Rhode Island Agricultural Society, and the Providence Athenaeum (a fee-based library), as well as working with others to curb drunkenness and prostitution that was becoming increasingly profitable in their society. He sold land to create the North Burial Ground, a historical cemetery in Rhode Island, where some of our ancestors are buried. He founded the Quaker New England Meeting School, later renamed the Moses Brown School, that still exists today. Moses outlived all three of his wives, his three children and his three brothers. He remained active in all his pursuits until his death at the age of 97 in 1836. As proof that blood is truly thicker than water, even with all their feuding and differences of opinion, John and Moses remained friends and business partners throughout their lives. In 2007, Charles Rappleye, an investigative reporter, wrote a book titled Sons of Providence: the Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution that documents the relationship between brothers John and Moses. |
Bonnie EastonHi! I am a Jones cousin, daughter of Evelyn Jones Easton. Since retiring as a reference librarian after 20 years, I have become a genealogy addict. Our ancestors want to tell us their stories.
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