William Burnet Brown, Skinny Legs and All

Like his first cousin William Browne, William Burnet Brown was a wealthy man and therefore rather well documented in eighteenth-century sources and nineteenth-century accounts.

However, almost none of those accounts connect him to the fight between John Robinson and James Otis, Jr., in the British Coffee-House in September 1769. That’s because he wasn’t even living in Massachusetts at the time.

In fact, the longest modern profile of Brown was written for Princetonians, the reference series on all men who went to Princeton College. It doesn’t mention the Otis incident at all, instead saying Brown “sank almost without trace” from prominence after 1767. So let’s start filling some gaps.

William Burnet Brown was born on 7 Oct 1738 in Salem. (Brown spelled his name both “Brown” and “Browne” in newspaper advertisements, and later sources spelled his middle name as “Burnett.” I’m using the simplest form.) At the time middle names were rare in New England, but little William’s parents gave him one for two reasons:

• To distinguish him from his first cousin, the future Massachusetts Justice William Browne, born the previous year.
• To remind people of his illustrious maternal line, including his great-grandfather, His Grace Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715), bishop of Salisbury; and his grandfather, the Hon. William Burnet (1688-1729), governor of both New York and New Jersey (1720-1728), and then both Massachusetts and New Hampshire (1728-1729).

William Burnet Brown’s father was Col. William Browne (1709-1763), a wealthy man and officeholder in Essex County. His mother was born Mary Burnet in 1723, married at the age of fourteen, and died of consumption at twenty-two, when her eldest son was about seven. Col. Browne later remarried.

After his cousin William went to Harvard College, William Burnet Brown headed south to join the class of 1760 at the College of New Jersey. The Princetonians profile speculates that this was because Col. Browne “was much given to theological speculation and controversy” and disliked the orthodox Congregationalists of New England.

I think it’s more notable that William B. was old for a college student. His cousin graduated from Harvard at the age of eighteen a few weeks before William B., a few weeks shy of seventeen, entered the New Jersey college’s grammar school for remedial lessons before becoming a freshman. So it’s possible the family chose that young college because it was the only one that would take him.

In 1763 William B. Brown’s father died, and he came into a big inheritance. The colonel’s will, quoted by Ezra Dodge Hines in Browne Hill and What Has Happened There, with Some Account of the Browne Family, states these bequests to his eldest son:

All my farm and lands at Royall Side with my land at Porter’s Neck [in Danvers], with the farm house and out houseing, stock and utensils, and the house on said farm, which I have built and named “Browne Hall” after the place in Lancashire, England, from whence my ancestors originally came, to William and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, and for want of such issue, the remainder to my son Samuel, and heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, and for want of such issue male, remainder to son Benjamin and heirs male, of his body lawfully begotten, and for want of such issue male, remainder to son Thomas, and heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, and for want of such issue in him to revert to my proper heirs. And to prevent any doubt whom I mean by heirs male in this devise, and in other parts of this my last will, I do hereby declare them to be, what by the laws of England they would be understood to be, and are not to be construed otherwise by any colour of any particular law or laws of any of the Colonys of America.

To William all pictures Tapestry, Library and medals, the same to be deemed heirlooms, and to pass with my said house called “Browne Hall,” to the heirs males, to whom my said house is limited as aforesaid. But my other sons and all their issue male, are to have the perusal of any of the books, in the said Library and liberty of borrowing them from time to time, as they have occasion for them, giving receipts for them in a receipt book, fixed to the Catalogue of the said Library, and useing them carefully and returning them safely, after a reasonable time allowed them for the reading thereof, when the receipts given are to be cancelled.

To William, one gilt cup, embossed with silver which was my said wife’s and formerly belonged to her grand-mother, Bishop Burnet’s Lady, which grand-mother was descended of the Duke of Buccleugh’s family. This is to be deemed an heir loom, and to pass with my said house of “Browne Hall” to the heirs males, to whom my said house is limited, that so it may remain as a memorial of their noble extraction. . . .

To William, two dutch knives, in a sheath of velvet, powdered with pearl; being a marriage covenant of Apollonius Scott, and Maria Vanderhoog, the father and mother of the said Bishop’s Lady.

The mansion that Col. Browne proudly called “Browne Hall” was known to locals at least as early as 1796 as “Brown’s Folly.” It stood on what’s still called Folly Hill in Beverly. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about the mansion in 1860, but someday I’ll discuss the real story behind it. For now, I’ll just say that in 1763 William Burnet Brown inherited a very valuable property.

The “pictures” that came with the estate included “a copy of Holbein’s portrait of Sir Anthony Browne, Viscount Montacute,” “a fine [painting] of the Bishop,” and portraits of his parents, perhaps by John Smibert. The “Tapestry” consisted of “Gobelin tapestry hangings, the gift to Bishop Burnet of William of Orange.” And there was “an inlaid box, in which the episcopal sermons were kept.”

In sum, William Burnet Brown was about as close to a British aristocrat as one could find in Salem, Massachusetts. Which was advantageous for him, because he had been sent home from Princeton after less than two years.

TOMORROW: A true American aristocrat.