John Nicholas Brown I

John Nicholas Brown I (1861 – May 1, 1900) was a book collector who donated his father's collection to Brown University.[1]

Biography

He was born in 1861 to John Carter Brown II. His only son, philanthropist John Nicholas Brown II, was born on February 21, 1900.

On September 8, 1897 he married Natalie Bayard Dresser at Trinity Church in Newport, Rhode Island. Natalie was the daughter of Brevet Major George Warren Dresser, an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War.[2]

He was a member of the Rhode Island Society of the Cincinnati and the New York Society of Colonial Wars. In 1890 he was elected as the second president of the Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and served until February 1891. Ironically, according to the Rhode Island Society's manual published in 1900, Brown "never qualified as a member of the Society, nor officiated as president." (pg. 27.)

He died on May 1, 1900 when his son was only three months old. His brother Harold Brown (Rhode Island) died a few days later after returning to the United States from Europe after hearing of his brother's death.[3][4]

Brown was the donor of the Providence Public Library building in Providence, RI.

In 1901, his widow donated the funds to build Emmanual Episcopal Church in Newport, RI in his memory.

External links

References

  1. ↑ "History of the John Carter Brown library". Retrieved 2011-04-21. Although the Brown family had been acquiring books since early in the eighteenth century, the present collection was not fully launched until the mid-nineteenth century when John Carter Brown (1797–1874) began avid pursuit of Americana, an area of interest he termed “the Great Subject.” His son, John Nicholas Brown (1861–1900), actively continued this tradition and before his untimely death had conceived the idea of giving the Library to the world of historical research as a memorial to his father.
  2. ↑ New York Times. August 29, 1897.
  3. ↑ "John Nicholas Brown II". Brown University. Retrieved 2011-04-22. John Nicholas Brown II (1900-1979) was born February 21, 1900. Two months later, his father John Nicholas Brown I died of typhoid fever, followed shortly by the unexpected death of his uncle Harold Brown. Thus, as an infant JNB became heir of his family's fortune and was dubbed by the public the "richest baby in America." John Nicholas Brown traveled the world in his youth and would continue to do so throughout his life. ...
  4. ↑ Romy Wyllie. Bertram Goodhue: his life and residential architecture. ISBN 0-393-73219-3. When John Nicholas Brown I and his brother both died in 1900, they left their fortune to John's three-month- old son, who became the richest baby in the world.
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