Joseph Brown

Joseph Brown was born in Providence, Rhode Island on December 3, 1733. He was the fourth of six children born to Captain James Brown and Hope Power; he and his sister and four brothers were the great‑great‑grandchildren of Chad Brown, who was one of the original settlers of Providence with Roger Williams.

​

Joseph’s oldest brother, James, died as a young man, but he and his surviving three brothers were key figures in the history of Providence. As such, all four, including Joseph, are used to effect in author H.P. Lovecraft’s novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, where Lovecraft makes them all part of the “select group bent on Curwen’s extirpation.”

 

Joseph began his career in the family trading business (Nicholas Brown & Company) but found his life’s work in architecture and science, particularly the study of electricity and astronomy. He married his cousin, Elizabeth Power, in 1759.

 

He was one of four noted Providence residents with a scientific bent who ordered a telescope from England, and set up a viewing platform (near what is now Transit St.) to observe the Transit of Venus in 1769. The following year he received an honorary degree from the College of Rhode Island (Brown University).

 

In the years from 1770 until his death he designed a number of buildings that still stand in Providence, including University Hall at Brown University (1770), the first of the University’s buildings in Providence; Market House on North Main Street (1773); his own house on South Main Street (1774), believed to be the first house designed, built, and lived in by its architect in the US; the First Baptist Church on Benefit Street (1774); and his brother John Brown’s house at the corner of Benefit and Power Streets, where the construction was completed in 1786­1788, just after Joseph’s death.

He was also active in his community and colony. He was one of the founders of the Charitable Baptist Society in 1770, established to build what became the First Baptist Church. He was one of the patriots involved in the burning of the Gaspee (a British revenue ship) in 1772, and served as the equivalent of state representative and state senator to the Rhode Island General Assembly (prior to statehood).

 

He was named the first professor of experimental philosophy at Brown University, but a 1784 stroke prevented him from actively assuming this role, and he died the following year.

 

Catherine Beyer Hurst, MBA, Writer and Community Historian

 

Further Reading

​

The Gaspee Virtual Archives, a site established and maintained by the Gaspee Days Committee, contains an excellent summary of the extant information about Joseph Brown, including research culled from a number of cited sources.

​

The relationship between Brown University and various members of the Brown family, including Joseph, are discussed in an entry on the university’s website.