Chad BROWN

                   Sources: N.E. H.G. Reg. V 80 p 73,also V 64 p 65,84, also V 65 p 84.
Savage V1 p 265 R.I. p 1 p107, R. I. 5 p 258, R. I. 3 V 2 p.551,736.
The American Genealogist V. 20, p.121
Emigrated from England in the ship Martin, which arrived in Boston, MASS., July 1638.


CHAD BROWN MEMORIAL:
       By William Bradford Brown, Gen R929.1 B934C, printed 1888

       Of the parentage, birthplace and early history of Chad Brown nothing is known.  Accompanied by his wife Elizabeth and son John, then eight years of age,  and perhaps his younger sons, he emigrated from England in the ship Martin which arrived in Boston, Massachusetts July 1638.  A fellow passenger, Sylvester Baldwin of Aston Clinton, Bucks County, England died during the voyage and Chad Brown, soon after his arrival, witnessed the nuncupative will.  Of this Savage gives the following account:
       "On the main ocean, bound for New England, his nuncupative will was made 21 June and proved 13 July of that year, before Dep. Governor Dudley, by oaths of Chad Brown, Francis Holt, James Weeden and John Baldwin."
       It is possible that his religious views were not in harmony with those of the Massachusetts settlers, as he soon removed to Providence, where he became at once a leader in the colony and one of it's most valued citizens.  According to tradition he was an exile from Salem "for conscience sake."  His coming to Providence was the same year of his arrival and there with twelve others, he signed the following compact:
       "We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit the town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for the public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town fellowship and such others as they shall admit into them, only in civil things."
       In the capacity as surveyor, he was soon after appointed on a committee to compile a list of the Home Lots of the first settlers on the "Towne Streets" and the meadows allotted to them.  It is to this important work that we are indebted for our knowledge of these properties.  His Home Lot fronted on the "Towne Street" now South Main and Market Square, with the southern boundary to the southward of College and South Main Streets.  It was about one hundred and twelve feet wide and extended eastwardly to the "Highway" now Hope Street.  The college grounds of Brown University comprise a large portion of this lot.
       In 1640 he served on a committee with three others regarding the disputed boundary line between Providence and Pawtuxet.  They reported in July that they had given the matter serious and careful consideration.
       "We have gone the fairest and equally way to produce our peace."
       The same year, Robert Cole, Chad Brown, William Harris and John Warner were the committee of Providence Colony who reported to them their first written form of government, which was adopted and continued in force until 1644 when Roger Williams returned from England with the first charter.  Of the thirty-nine signatures to this agreement, Chad Brown's is the fist.  This instrument contains the arbitration decision to which in later years Roger Williams, in speaking of dissensions which so disturbed the peace of the early colonists referred on this wise: "The truth is that Chad Brown, that Holy man, now with God, and myself, brought the remaining after-comers and the first twelve to a one-ness by arbitration.
       In 1642 he was ordained as the first settled Pastor of the Baptist Church and is thus mentioned by Hague in his historical discourse:
       "Contemporary with Roger Williams, he possessed a cooler temperment and was happily adapted to sustain the interests of religion most where that great man failed."
       Not being affected by the arguments of the Seekers, he maintained his standing firmly in a church which he believed to be founded firmly on the Rock of eternal truth, even the work of God which abideth forever.  We know only enough of his character to excite the wish to know more; but from that little it is clear that he was highly esteemed as a man of sound judgment and of a christian spirit.  Often referred to as the arbitrator of existing difference in a state of society where individual influence was needed as a substitute for well digested laws, he won that commendation which the Savior pronounced when he said "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
       In 1643 he was on a committee to negotiate peace between the Warwick settlers and Massachusetts Bay Colony in regard to Warwick.  It was settled by the Royal Commissioners and a decision rendered in favor of the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
       It is evident that he died some years earlier than is supposed as the name of his widow occurs in a tax list of 2 Sept. 1650.  His sons allude in deeds to the will of their father.  Chad and Elizabeth Brown were buried in an orchard on his home lot, College Street, corner of Benefit, where the County Court House now stands.  Their remains were removed in 1792 to the Nicholas Brown lot in the North Burial Ground where a stone with this inscription marks the spot:

                                                    In Memory of
                                                  CHAD BROWN
                                         Elder of the Baptist Church in
                                                     this Town
                                 He was one of the original Proprietors of
                                         the Providence Purchase
                                 Having been exiled from Massachusetts
                                              for conscience' sake
                                                 He had five sons
                                John, James, Jeremiah, Chad and Daniel
                                       who left a Numerous Posterity
                                          He died about A.D. 1665
                                                 This Monument
                                 Was erected by the Town of Providence

       Other early settlers bore the name of Browne and may have been related to Chad, but of this no evidence exists.  The final e has been dropped by nearly all the descendants of Chad Brown, and occurs at the present time only in the Gloucester, Rhode Island branch.  Abraham Lincoln is among his descendants.

Note from Preface - by Abbey Isabel (Brown) Bulkley:
       The annals of Rhode Island are unique.  The heroic steps by which a few exiles, banished from Massachusetts Bay, for political and religious heresies, founded a permanent colony on the shores of the Narragansett Bay, based on new and untried theories of religion and politics, will never cease to interest the historian and the philosopher.  The influence and example of this little colony of freeman have not yet ceased to effect the interests of mankind."
N.E.H. & G.R. Oct 1877 C.W.T.