Born in 1738, Moses Brown was the youngest of the five brothers born into the prominent Brown family. He became an abolitionist, and manumitted his slaves in 1773; he did this although other members of the Brown family were slave traders. He was also a merchant, working for his uncle Obadiah at Obadiah Brown & Co., later Nicholas Brown & Co. and run by Moses and his brothers Nicholas, John, and Joseph. Moses was also a reformer, serving as a deputy in the Rhode Island General Assembly from 1764 to 1771, and actively opposing the Stamp Act in 1765.

He joined the Society of Friends, or Quakers, in 1774 after the death of his first wife, Anna. Six years later, in 1780, Moses donated $575 to the Friends of New England for the establishment of a school (for both Quaker and non-Quaker children) in Rhode Island. He had a keen interest in the school from the start.

In 1784, the Friends’ Yearly Meeting School opened in Portsmouth, only to close after another four years due to low enrollment and budget concerns. More than thirty years would pass before the school’s reemergence. Still believing in the importance of an education built upon the ethical values of the Friends Society, in 1814 Brown donated forty-three acres of land in Providence for the reestablishment of the school. From 1819 to 1902 the school was known as the Friends’ Meeting School, before being renamed the Moses Brown School, in honor of its most important benefactor, in the 1920s.

Designed by renowned Providence architect John Holden Greene, the new school opened its doors on January 1, 1819. Initially, non-Quaker children paid higher tuition and had to agree to conform to specific standards before they could be admitted to the school. With an average yearly attendance of 125 over the first decade, the new iteration of the Friends’ School was considered an instant success. In 1822 Moses Brown’s only son, Obadiah passed away, and in his will he gifted a total of $100,000 for the building and furnishings, and an additional $650 worth of books and maps. The donation allowed the school to expand as its popularity increased.

During the first century of operation, boys and girls were accepted to the school. At the turn of the twentieth century, co-ed schools were becoming increasingly controversial, and in 1925 the Moses Brown School became a boys-only institution, sending female students to the nearby Lincoln School. Only in the 1970s did the school again admit female students. Today the school continues as an elite private Friends’ school on Providence’s east side.

In 2015 the Moses Brown School gained internet fame when Head of School Matt Glendinning parodied the hit Disney song, “Let it Go” on YouTube. His snow day announcement, “School is Closed” raked in over 4.1 million views and was featured on NBC’s Today Show.

Notable alumni of the school include Jesse Williams, political activist and actor on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, and Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, Jr., the 32nd and 34th Mayor of Providence.

Moses Brown died on September 6, 1836. He rests in the North Burial Ground’s Quaker cemetery, a parcel of land that Moses Brown formerly owned.

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There are a few things that Rhode Island lacks: adequate parking at the beach, pothole-free streets, and enough Del’s to go around. One thing it does not lack however is prominent figures with the last name “Brown.” To be fair, it was a Brown that co-founded Providence; it was the Brown family that helped bring the school (Rhode Island College) that would become the university to its current location; and it was a Brown that brought the father of the American Industrial Revolution, Samuel Slater, to Rhode Island. But it is often unclear who in this large and influential family was Brown University’s namesake. That would be businessman and philanthropist, Nicholas Brown, Jr. Nicholas Brown, Jr. was born in Providence on April 7, 1769, to Nicholas Brown and Rhoda (Jenckes) Brown. After graduating in 1786 from the school that would eventually bear his name, Brown entered the family mercantile business and worked under his father. Following his father’s death in 1791, the younger Brown partnered with fellow Providence businessman Thomas P. Ives, and together they formed the firm of Brown & Ives – a mercantile partnership that would become one of the longest-lived and most respected trading entities in New England of its time. The idea of a religiously-tolerant institution was conceptualized in 1762 by a Baptist Reverend, James Manning, and two years later Rhode Island College became a reality. Originally located in Warren, the school moved to Providence in 1770 with financial help from the “Brown Brothers”: Joseph, Nicholas (Sr.), John, and Moses. After his uncle, John Brown, resigned his position as treasurer of Rhode Island College in 1796, Brown, Jr. was selected to fill the vacant seat. After Brown, Jr. was elected to the seat, he donated a law library of “considerable extent and value” and paid for several works of great English literature to be added. Years later, in 1804, Brown, Jr. donated $5,000 to the school to be put towards a Rhetoric and Oratory program. Because of his generous donation, school officials renamed the institution “Brown University.” Brown University is a part of the eight-member Ivy League and one of the oldest colleges in the country.  

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Amidst the flurry of trains and industry that marked this area during the 19th century was a much needed bucolic retreat, what we now call Burnside Park. Adjacent to the historic transportation hub of Providence, Burnside Park was originally created as a public space in 1892. The park eventually became a convenient downtown space to showcase two large public art works: the Bajnotti Fountain and the statue of notable Rhode Islander Ambrose Burnside.

Dedicated in 1901, the Bajnotti Fountain was a gift from Italian Diplomat Paul Bajnotti to the city of Providence in honor of his late wife, Carrie Mathilde Brown, whose family was prominent in the city. Bajnotti and Brown married in 1876 and spent most of their wedded life in Italy, but maintained strong ties to Providence. After Brown’s death in 1896, Bajnotti erected three monuments in memory of his beloved wife: the Carrie Tower at Brown University, the Pancratiast Statue at Roger Williams Park, and the Carrie Brown Bajnotti Memorial Fountain at Burnside Park. Enid Yandell, a student of Auguste Rodin and a prominent female sculptor at the time, was the only woman to submit a design proposal. She won the competition. The sculpture consists of three allegorical parts. One interpretation states that life is symbolized by the woman, the spirit, symbolized by an angel, and “earthly tendencies” represented by three male figures. Life holds onto the spirit and they are both bound to the earth for eternity––an appropriate memorial for the marriage.

The Burnside statue, dedicated in 1887, commemorates former Rhode Island governor and Civil War general Ambrose Burnside. Born in Indiana, Burnside attended the United States Military Academy, and was eventually stationed at Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island. When the Civil War began Burnside raised the 1st Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry Regiment becoming its colonel. He quickly climbed the Union ranks and played important leadership roles in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg. Unfortunately, Burnside is not well remembered for his military acumen. Failure at the Crater caused Union general Ulysses S. Grant to order Burnside on “extended leave” effectively ending his military career. Following the war, Burnside served three one year terms as governor of Rhode Island, and remained a popular public figure until his death in 1881. Launt Thompson, a New York sculptor, completed this memorial in 1887. It was dedicated in the park bearing Burnside’s name in 1906. The park is not Burnside’s only namesake, however--the term “sideburns” comes from his instantly recognizable facial hair.

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If the walls of University Hall could talk, they might tell you about the time they met George Washington (although don’t believe them if they tell you he slept here). The first building constructed on Brown’s campus, University Hall, has played host to wounded soldiers during the Revolutionary War as well as our nation’s first president, during his visit to Rhode Island in 1790. The Providence Gazette reported that despite Washington’s habit of not going out in the evening, he made his way from his lodging at the Golden Ball Inn to University Hall to accept the invitation of Brown University undergraduates. In a patriotic display, students outfitted each of the Hall’s windows with candles aglow.

Renowned for “The Brown Curriculum,” an innovative approach to undergraduate education instituted in 1970, Brown University’s philosophy states that students, who are free to design their own curriculum, are “the architects of their own course of study.” Founded in 1764 by Baptists as the College of Rhode Island, the school moved to Providence in 1770. The institution changed its name to “Brown University” in 1804 after a generous donation by Nicholas Brown, prominent Providence businessman and alumnus of the school.

With over 250 years of history under its belt, Brown University understandably boasts many styles of architecture. One of the most noticeable structures on campus is the Carrie Tower (1904). Paul Bajnotti commissioned the tower to honor the memory of his wife, Caroline Mathilde Brown, grandaughter of Nicholas Brown, Brown University’s namesake.

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