4/02/2001
David and Joseph R. Brown


    David Brown was born on April 17, 1781 in Attleboro, the son of David and Chloe S. (Carpenter) Brown.   He married Patience Rogers, the daughter of Joseph Rogers of Newport, at Middletown, in April 1809.   They eventually had six children. David came from a farming background in Attleboro.   He left home at the age of 14 with very little education to become a tavern boy in Seekonk.   He stayed there only one or two years, when he left to join Nehemiah Dodge in Providence as an apprentice in the jewelry trade.   After serving a full apprenticeship, he joined Payton Dana under whom he mastered watch and clock making.   About 1802, he was hired by Obed Robinson to organize and run a plated jewelry company in Attleboro.   By 1804, he had moved to Warren, where he became established in the manufacturing of clocks, watches, jewelry and silverware.   Business becoming very slack about  1825, he traveled through the Connecticut Valley grinding razors and fine cutlery on a machine he wheeled before him. While thus employed, he also sold silverware of his own making.  In three years he had cleared himself of all debt and had saved some money as well.

     In 1828, he moved to Pawtucket and established himself making clocks of various descriptions. It was said that David Brown installed a tower clock  in Pawtucket, and although the exact location of this clock is not known, the tower clock in the original Congregational Church seems the most likely.   In The Pawtucket Chronicle of Oct. 18, 1828, it  was stated that "We are highly gratified to learn that our citizens are about to purchase a time-piece the expense of which will be $500, and that subscriptions are now solicited of the inhabitants to defray the expense .... A time-piece which can be depended upon as a regulator, located in so central and public a situation as the tower of the new Congregational Church, will be of great utility in this village.  All are aware of the vexatious confusion occasioned by the difference of time in the ringing of factory bells at this time, which can only be remedied by erecting a clock that will always give the right time of day."   This original clock was lost in the great church fire of 1865; thus the one we see today is of much newer origin. This was the only tower clock in Pawtucket at the time and David Brown was making clocks in Pawtucket during this period. Both facts give strong indication that this clock was of his making. The importance to the village or town in the 1820's or 1830's of such a centrally located and visible time piece cannot be overstated.

     David's son, Joseph Rodgers Brown, born Jan. 26, 1810, soon joined him in business for a time, but then learned the machinery trade in the shops of Walcott & Harris in Pawtucket. In 1831, we find Joseph setting up a little shop of his own for the manufacturing of small tools for machinists and for the building of lathes. Mutual interest proved such that the father and son set up a partnership under the name of David Brown & Son on South Main Street in Providence.  The partnership of father and son dissolved in 1841 at the time of the Dorr War or Rebellion, Rhode Island's own internal civil war. David went west in disgust over this turn of events and settled on a half of a quarter section of farm land in Arispa, Bureau County, IL with his son Peleg and his daughter-in-law, Amanda V. Brown.

     On Sept. 12, 1848, Joseph R. Brown took on an apprentice.   In Joseph's old job book, an item of momentous importance was sandwiched in, stating, "Lucian Sharpe came to work for me today as an apprentice.  " On March 1, 1853, before the expiration of his contract with Joseph Brown, he was made a full partner in the enterprise newly created under the name of J. R. Brown & Sharpe.   Also in 1853, this newly formed partnership built for the State of Rhode Island a turret clock which was installed in the state house at Newport, RI.

     In 1856, David returned to Pawtucket where he built a residence for his daughter Sarah Ann and her husband Daniel Wilkinson at the then 67 High St.  David and his wife also lived in this house with the Wilkinsons.  In the rear of the house, David Brown built a shop in which he worked until his death in 1868 at the age of 87.  The house stayed in the Brown family for three generations, finally being sold. This Brown house is still in existence today at 212 High St. in Pawtucket.

      During his life in Pawtucket, David Brown, farm boy from Attleboro, prospered from watch and clockmaker of note to lay the foundation (with his son Joseph in 1833) of the great Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Co. then known as David Brown & Son.  During his later life in Pawtucket, he again struck out on his own to resume his earlier trade as a watch and clock maker.  He practiced this semi-retirement activity at his residence on High until his life's end.

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