USA > Rhode Island > History of Rhode Island > Part 10
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" As her life was thus, in all respects, useful and agreeable, so it happily serves to confirmn a truth, highly important to the interest of morality, that whoever is pitiful and courteous, and anxious to promote the happiness of others, will be uni- versally beloved, and universally regretted. It was unnecessary, and perhaps impertinent, to have said so much of this amiable and universally admired character; you all knew her worth, and I trust will long respect her memory ; and those who were most intimately connected with her, have no need to be put in remembrance, that these things were, and were most dear to them."
In the past, it was not the drapery alone which charmed the beholder, but rather the moral and intellectual acquirements of the mind ; these were the gems which rendered the casket, in comparison, valueless. The expenditures for Schools and
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GENEALOGY OF THE MALBORN AND BRINLEY FAMILIES.
Academies were far less than at the present period, and the progress in knowledge as in actual accomplishment, far in ad- vance of this age. There was a solidity of judgment, a fixed- ness of purpose, a devotion to principle, which distinguished the minds of a former age, and which rendered society highly attractive and agreeable.
That lightness and frivolity of character, unbecoming the gentleman and lady, and which is disgusting to an elevated and refined mind, was not to be met with in the higher and fashion- able circles of society.
We have given the foregoing extract of a most valuable ser- mon, in order to give the reader some idea of what then consti- tuted greatness of character; and would to God that the present age would labor to copy after such an example as is here held up to view.
If all the energies of the intellect, and all the treasures which have been expended in fostering malignant passions, and in promoting contentions and warfare, had been devoted to the great object of cultivating the principle of benevolence, and distributing happiness among men, the moral and physical aspect of our world would, long ago, have assumed a very dif- ferent appearance from what it now wears.
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GENEALOGY OF THE MALBORN AND BRINLEY FAMILIES.
The Malborn and Brinley families figured largely in the past history of Newport. Col. Godfrey Malborn was a native of Prince Anne county, Virginia, and his farm was near the city and borough of Norfolk. He came to Rhode Island about 1700. He was a man of sturdy frame and character. The tradition is, that he disliked school discipline, absconded from his friends, became a sailor boy, and that he was actually bound out as an apprentice to a ship-master, by the authority of the town of Bristol, then in the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. During his apprenticeship, by the death of one of his ancestors, he became entitled to a large property in Virginia. He settled in Newport, where he married Margaret Scott ; became, as the reader has already seen, a distinguished merchant, and was
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HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
eminently successful. In the war of 1740, with France and Spain, he fitted out several private armed vessels of war, which made many captures. He died at Newport, February 22d, 1768, and was buried in the vault under Trinity Church, of which he was one of the founders. He left two sons, Godfrey and John ; Thomas, another son, a graduate of Cambridge, Massachusetts, having died at an early age, the victim, it has been said, of an over-devotion to study.
Godfrey, the eldest son, was educated at Queen's College, Oxford ; returned to Rhode Island in 1774, and carried on business on a large scale, in company with his brother John. They were largely engaged in the Colonial Neutral trade, in the war of 1756-7, ending by the peace of 1763, and at first was uncommonly successful, but in the end suffered severely, by the application of the rule of 1756. Two large ships lader with sugar, bound for Hamburgh, having been captured, were condemned, after a long and expensive litigation in the English Courts of Admiralty. These, and other vexatious losses, in- duced Mr. Malborn to retire from business, to the calm retreat of his large estate, in Pomfret, Connecticut. Mr. Malborn built an Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, known as the " Mal- born Church."
" This was the first church erected, and for a long period, the only church of that denomination in this country. It was erected before the Revolutionary war, by Godfrey Malborn, Jun., Esq., a gentleman from Newport, Rhode Island. On his removal to Connecticut, he brought with him fifty or sixty slaves, on his large estate on which he resided. A great pro- portion of the colored people in this part of the State are their descendants."-Connecticut Historical Collections.
The Rev. Mr. Fog, the first Rector of the church, was a gentleman of highly respectable attainments, and continued to officiate until his death.
Mr. Malborn married Miss Brinley, of Roxbury, sister of Francis Brinley, of Newport, and died without issue, 1785. His remains lay interred in the church-yard of the Episcopal Church in Brooklyn.
Godfrey Malborn, senior, had five daughters ; one married the above Francis Brinley ; another, the youngest, to Dr. William Hunter, father of the late Hon. William Hunter.
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GENEALOGY OF THE MALBORN AND BRINLEY FAMILIES.
One married Major Fairchild, one Dr. Mac-Kay, and another Shubel Hutchinson.
Thomas Brinley, in the reign of Charles the First, held the office of Auditor General. At the downfall of that sovereign, he adhered to the fortunes of Charles the Second, and followed him on his exile upon the Continent. Upon the restoration of the second Charles, he held the same office under him, and died one year after ; he was buried in the middle aisle of Datchet church, near London ; the slab over his remains, still records these facts.
His son, Francis, (the first of Newport,) left England, and arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, and there amassed a large fortune ; he died in Newport. He had previously sent his eldest son, Themas, to England, for his education ; he married in London, and had three children, and died there with the small-pox. His son, William, died, aged 13. His eldest son, Francis, (the second,) and daughter Elizabeth, with their mother, ¿ came to America, and inherited the fortune of his grandfather. He built the house at Roxbury, after the model of the old family mansion at Datchet, in England.
Elizabeth, grand-daughter of Thomas Brinley, Anditor- General for King Charles First and Second, came over with her brother Frank and their mother, from England, and settled at Roxbury ; she married a Mr. Hutchinson, father of Shrimp- ton Hutchinson, who married a Malborn. Mrs. Col. Putman, George Brinley's wife's mother, was, in 1840, the only one of the stock remaining, ed. est. the Hutchinsons.
There was a branch of the Brinley's in New Jersey, as early as 1776 ; I know this from the following records in my office, (Surveyor-General's :)-
" Lib. 2, fols. 33 & 80 : ) Warrt. Survey and Patent, from 8th March, 1677. Sir George Carteret, Knt., &c. Proprietor of E. Jersey, to Simon Brinley, ' for a parcel of land about the towne of Piscataway.' "
Simon Brinley's will was recorded at Trenton, 5th January, 1724-5, in " Book A, of Wills, page 348." I can trace him no farther.
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Frank W. Brinley, Esq., of Perth Amboy, N. J., General. Surveyor, one of my old schoolfellows, has kindly furnished some interesting notes of his family, which are here subjoined, as standing in most intimate relation with the past events of Newport.
" Thomas Brinley, first son of Francis and Deborah, of Rox- bury, Massachusetts, was a King's Counsellor, and went to England with the British troops. He married a Miss Leyed, received a compensation from the British government, and died in England ; he left no issue.
" Edward Brinley, third son, remained in Boston at the Re- volution, and was much persecuted as a Loyalist ; he kept a grocery in Boston, and was very unfortunate. He was father of George Brinley, druggist, now of Hartford, Connecticut, and of Frank and William, who lived at Roxbury.
" Nathaniel Brinley, fourth son, lived at Tingsbury, a farmer of large estate : had one son, Robert, still alive, and resident at Tingsbury ; said to be one of the best of men.
" George Brinley, fifth son, (my father's idol.) He was Commissary in the British army, during the Revolution. In 1777, at the time of the action at Princeton, the British being in New Brunswick and Perth Amboy, on his way from New Brunswick to Perth Amboy, with one servant, he was fired upon by a party of Provincials, ' minute-men,' who had come down from Woodbridge, on the main road between Brunswick and Amboy, from what is now (1850,) known as the 'Old Tappan House,' in the village of Bonhamtown. He received five musket balls in various parts of his body ; but retained his seat on horseback. His servant, being somewhat behind, wheeled, and rode back to New Brunswick, reporting his master as killed. Each ball made a flesh wound, and did not touch a bone. George rode on, until he reached ' Hangman's Corner,' (the parting roads from Perth Amboy, to Bonhamtown and Woodbridge,) where he fell from his horse, from loss of blood, and was seen to fall by the sentinel at the ' King's bar- racks.' A party was sent out, who brought him in, with his horse, that remained by him. He laid many months at Am- boy. My father, (Edward,) who came from Newport to attend him, says, ' that when he saw his uncle, he had lain so long, that the shoulder-bones were through the skin.' He finally
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. recovered, and returned with the British troops ; was appointed Commissary at Halifax, and afterwards Commissary-General of the British troops in America.
" He married a daughter of Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, had two sons, Thomas and William, and a daugh- ter, Mary. William was a pay-master in the British army. Mary married a ' Moody,' in England, and one of her daugh- ters was in Boston two or three years ago.
" Frank, my father's eldest brother, served his time with Dr. Hunter, who married Miss Malborn, (my grand-mother's sister.) Frank was Surgeon of the ' New-York Volunteers,' and went to Carolina with them,-afterwards died at my father's house, (Edward Brinley,) at Shelburne, in 1757-8.
" Commissary George's son, Tom, was a Colonel in the British army, and was with Sir John Moore, in Spain; was detached to the West Indies, and there died an Adjutant- General.
" Francis Brinley, my grand-father, lived at Newport, Rhode Island ; married Aleph Malborn, daughter of Godfrey Malborn. My uncle, ' Frank,' died young ; was at College, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the time the British troops marched to Lexington. My father, Edward, was there on a visit to his brother. On the retreat of the British, the Americans were in pursuit, and, from the circumstance of some of the British officers having been with Frank and my father, (Ned,) imagined that Frank had ' pilotted the troops.' The Americans, or some of them, were so exasperated, that my father and others were obliged to lower Frank, by sheets tied together, from one of the College windows ; while the Americans battered the door of his room, and destroyed everything.
" Frank and Ned afterwards came together, got an old horse from a pasture, and went " ride and tie' to Newport, 'full of wrath.' They met the British troops and joined them, and were called 'Tories' ever afterwards. My father says, ' Had it not been for this circumstance, we would have been the best of Democrats.'
" Deborah, my aunt, married an Episcopal clergyman, Rev. Daniel Fogg, of Brooklyn, Connecticut. She died a few years ago ; had Francis Brinley Fogg, who studied at Newport, under the late Hon. William Hunter, and removed to Nashville,
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Tennessee, where he married, and is an eminent lawyer : Ed- ward, who still lives with his sister, Aleph Brinley Fogg, at Brooklyn, and Godfrey Malborn Fogg, who is, I believe, still living.
" Elizabeth, my aunt, married Capt. William Littlefield, formerly of the United States army, stationed at Newport ; Littlefield was aid-de-camp to Gen. Nathaniel Greene, who married his sister.
" Edward Brinley Littlefield, of Tennessee, who was highly esteemed there, William, of Newport, and John, a physician, who died some years since, at New Orleans.
" Thomas, my uncle, still resides at Newport, a very aged man, though remarkably vigorous for one of his years. (He has recently died, aged 87.)
" Catharine, my aunt, married a Dr. Field, a Surgeon in the British army, and died at Jamaica, on Long Island, without issue.
" Gertrude Aleph, my sister, married the Rev. Edward Gilpin, son of John Gilpin, long his Britannic Majesty's Consul at Newport. D
" Elizabeth Parker, my sister, married the Rev. J .F. Halsey, son of Capt. Halsey, of the United States' army.
" My father married, in 1806, Mary, the daughter of Dr. Johnson, of Newport ; had issue, Edward L. Brinley, now a merchant, of the firm of Furness, Brinley & Co., Philadelphia : he married Fanny, sister of Major Brown, now in Russia.
" My son, Edward, is an officer in the United States' navy.
" My father, Edward Brinley, resides with me ; he is 94 years old, but will not use a cane. He was, when young, shot through the body, with an iron ramrod, still in my possession. The following is the copy of the record of the accident in his own hand-writing :
"'RECORD.
" ' This ramrod was shot through my body, when I was about twenty-one years old. It was an accident, and happened thus ; I was out shooting snipe, robins, and other small birds, in company with a young man of about my own age ; his gun had an iron ramrod, and in the course of the morning's shooting
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GENEALOGY OF THE MALBORN AND BRINLEY FAMILIES.
got foul, and the ramrod stuck, and being stronger in the grip with my fingers, I had twice pulled it out for him, the third time it stuck so fast that I could not draw it. I proposed firing against a crib, about twenty-five yards distance, and, I snppose, I cocked the gun for that purpose. He objected, say- ing; that he would lose his sport for the remainder of the day. I then told him to take hold of the breech, and I took the end of the ramrod, and both pulled away. I think it probable his hand was before the guard of the trigger, and he must have touched it with his finger. Off went the gun, the ramrod through my body. It entered about two or two and a half inches above my navel, and came out about the same distance from the back-bone, going, as the doctors said, through the lower part of the liver. The ramrod was found at the foot of an apple tree, in the same form that it is now, , about thirty yards off. My companion, half-frightened to death, ran off, leaving me to get to a house, not far distant, but with a five-rail fence to get over. An express was immediately sent off to town, about two miles distant, and my father, and mother, and sister, and three doctors, two of them skilful surgeons in the British army, who then were in Newport, to whose know- ledge of similar cases, I am, probably, indebted for my life. In about three weeks I was taken to town in a litter, and in another three weeks quite well, except weakness.
" Given under my hand this Eighteenth day of October, A. D. 1848.
" EDWARD BRINLEY, aged 90 years."
" The pictures of my great-grand-father, and great-grand- mother, hanging up in my parlor, were painted by Simybert, who came over to this country with George Berkley, Lord Bishop of Cloyne, about 1700. The child in my great-grand- mother's arms is my grandfather, Francis Brinley, (second of Newport.) The back ground of the picture representing my great-grand-father, is a view of his meadows, &c., with the town in the distance. The pictures are in good preservation, (life size,) and have been pronounced ' chef-d'œuvres.'
" The house at Roxbury, Massachusetts, built by Francis Brinley, of Roxbury, was after the model of the old family mansion at Datchet, near London, and still is in good preser- vation."
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HISTORY OF RIODE , ISLAND.
1634. The record of the Brinley family, commences in America. It will be perceived by the reader, that the Brinley family were Loyalists. They may have thought, like Saul of Tarsus, when he was waging a war of extermination against Christians, that they did it all in good conscience. But " the sword of the Lord and of Gideon" prevailed against our ene- mies ; and they and their descendants have reaped the blessings acquired by other hearts, and other hands, in the glorious enterprise.
I have the following information of an old family of Newport, taken from these Records, viz. :
" Book C, page 158, ) Deed from Sarah Reape, widow of Ist August, 1694. S William Reape, late of Rhode Island, deceased, to William Marsh, son of Jonathan Marsh, of Newport, mariner, for certain lands in Monmouth county, N. J."
William Brinley signs this deed as a witness ; dated in Shrewsbury, Monmouth county, New-York.
It appears that this Sarah came from Newport, about the year 1676, and had one patent for land to her in Shrewsbury, of 2010 acres, and various other large patents ; one of 500 acres, " in right of her deceased husband."
" Lib. B 2, fol. 165, ) Deed from Jonathan Marsh, of New- 20 Sept. 1685. port, &c., merchant, to Sarah Reape, for a right of Propriety in East Jersey."
From the above documents, I find that her husband's (Wil- liam Reape) will, was dated 1st August, 1670.
" Lib. A, of Wills, page 5, { Sarah Reape's Will ;" (by which 7th of Jan. 1715. it appears she had a large estate in Weymouth, Dorsetshire, in Old England. She devises as follows) :- " To my grandson, William Brinley, my house lot, that I bought of the town of Newport, on Rhode Island, with the housings thereon. And also all my land at Rack (Wreck) Pond ; and unto his three sons, Francis, William,
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LITERARY SOCIETY ESTABLISHED.
and Thomas; a silver spoon to each, and all my tract of land of about 400 acres, in freehold. To my grand-daughter, Sarah Brinley, feather-beds, &c. ; to my grandson William Brinley, my great silver cup, and all my land that lyeth at Whale Point, and all my right of propriety ; to my grand-daughter, Elizabeth Brinley, a silver spoon, &c. ; to my grandson, William Brinley, youngest son of Reape Brinley, my lands in Weymouth, in Old England," &c.
By her will she must have been very rich.
My presumption is, that Francis Brinley, (first) of Newport, had first, Thomas, then a second son, who married a daughter of William and Sarah Reape, of Newport, and their son, Wil- liam, emigrated about the year 1685, to Monmouth county, New Jersey, and settled with his grandmother ; he was one of the executors to his grandmother's will.
This William became a man of large possessions, and of mnch note. He is first named on the Records as a yeoman, then esquire, gentleman, and judge. The first grant of lands to him was in 1718 ; and he had many extensive grants of land besides those devised to him by his grandmother, Sarah.
He died about the year 1765, in Shrewsbury.
John Brinley appears on the Records, from 1754 to 1774. He died during the Revolution.
Reape Brinley, heir of William Brinley, and the youngest son, (mentioned in Sarah Reape's will,) was alive, in Shrewsbury, the 10th August, 1801. His son, Joseph Brinley, lived near Eatontown, in Shrewsbury, a man of considerable property, and a member of our Legislature about 1840. He died about 1843, leaving one child, a daughter.
A LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY ESTABLISHED AT NEWPORT.
The celebrated Dean, afterwards Bishop Berkley, who re- sided here at the time is thought to have suggested its for- mation. The society was select, and some of its members were
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men of great intellectual power, among whom were Judge Edward Scott, Hon. Daniel Updike, Governor Jonas Lyndon, Dr. John Brett, Hon. Thomas Ward, Hon. William Ellery, Rev. James Honeyman, Rev. James Searing, Rev. John Chickley, Jun., and the Rev. Jeremiah Condy, of Boston.
Among the occasional numbers, were Governor Stephen Hopkins, and Samuel Johnson, D.D., afterwards President of Columbia College, New-York, and to this distinguished array of talent the Rev. Elisha Callender also belonged.
As this was probably one of the earliest societies of the kind in this country, we have thought that it might prove interesting to the reader, to subjoin a few extracts from the " Rules and Regulations of the Society." The original is in the hand- writing of Judge Scott.
" First Regulation .- The members of this society shall meet every Monday evening, at the house of one of the members, seriatim, and converse about, and debate, some useful question in divinity, morality, philosophy, history, &c.
" Second .- The member who proposes the question, shall be moderator, pro hac vice, and see that order and decency be maintained in all the debates and conversation.
" Fifth .- No member shall divulge the opinions or argu- ments of any particular member, as to any subject debated in the society, on penalty of a perpetual exclusion. Nevertheless, any member may gratify the curiosity of any that may enquire the names, number, general design, method, and laws of the society, and the opinions, or conclusions of the major part, without discovering how any particular member voted.
" Newport, February 2d, 1735.'
One of the objects of this society, was the collection of valuable books. It was subsequently joined by Abraham Redwood, Esq., who gave the sum of five hundred pounds sterling, to increase its library, on condition that the society would build a suitable edifice.
The society obtained a charter from the Colony in 1747, by the name of " The Company of the Redwood Library."
Abraham Redwood, was the son of Abraham Redwood, formerly of Bristol, England, and Mehitable, his wife, daughter
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LITERARY SOCIETY ESTABLISHED.
of Jonas Langford, of the island of Antigua. At what time they came to Rhode Island is unknown. Mr. Redwood died in Newport, in 1772. They belonged to the Society of Friends. Mr. Redwood, by the death of an elder brother, became sole heir of the large estate of his grandfather, Langford, in Antigua.
In 1748, the present classical building was commenced, from a design by Mr. Harrison, the assistant architect of Blenheim House, England. It is remarked by Dr. Waterhouse, that in architectural taste and costly structure, Newport stood pre- eminent .. He says : " Where is there a structure now in New England, that surpasses the Redwood Library ? We have only to lament its perishable material. If you say that it was copied from an Athenian temple, still there is some credit due to them in selecting, seventy years ago, and relishing so chaste a specimen of Grecian taste." At this period, Newport was the " Athens of America."
We would suggest that the entrance to the Library be restored, agreeably to its original design, which was a gate in the centre, leading direct to the steps. It is now in bad taste, and contrary to the rules of architecture.
Henry Collins, Esq., proved a noble coadjutor of Mr. Red- wood, and presented, in June, 1748, to the Company, the lot of land then called Bowling-Green, on which the present edifice now stands.
The building was not completed until 1750 ; a tax of twelve hundred pounds was assessed on the members of the Company, to defray the expense of completing it. The principal library room occupies the whole of the main building, is thirty-seven feet long, twenty-six feet broad, and nineteen feet in height. The present number of volumes is 6,000. The King of England gave to Redwood Library eighty-four volumes, of which seventy-two are large folios, and twelve octavos, which is said to be the largest collection sent to this country. The entire set has been nearly thirty five years in the course of pub- lication, and from the great demand for the different works of which it is composed, many of them have become exceedingly scarce, and some of them are now out of print. They consist of Doom's-day Book, Statutes of the realm, Parliamentary Acts of both England, Scotland, &c.
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HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
The master builders of the library were, Wing Spooner, Samuel Greene, Thomas Melville, and Isaac Chapman.
Abraham Redwood, of Dorset-place, Mary-le-bone, London, England, gave the homestead place, situated in Newport, to the library. In 1837, Baron Hollinguer, a distinguished banker, of Paris, who was connected by marriage with the Redwood family, presented the Company one thousand francs, for the restoration of the building. Many other bequests have been made by the friends of literature.
A certain elegant writer, (Dr. Waterhouse,) asserts, " That the founders of Redwood Library, sowed the seeds of science among us, and rendered the inhabitants, if not a more learned, yet a better read, and more inquisitive people, than that of any other town in the then British Provinces."
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