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Manuscript memorandum of the state of mind & sum of circumstances of the death of Joanna Brown
178555306Newport 1785. Three-page folio manuscript approx. 13" x 16"; previous folds paper toned considerable dampstaining but the text remains legible; several short splits at the folds; good. Joanna Brown was the daughter of Nicholas and his wife Rhoda Jenckes Brown. Sadly Joanna died at the age of nineteen apparently of a flu-like illness. Nicholas Brown Sr. 1729-1791 was a Providence merchant who co-founded the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations which was renamed Brown University after Brown's son Nicholas Brown Jr. in 1804. Brown was a active supporter of both the College and of the First Baptist Church in America throughout his life. Upon his death in 1791 Rev. Dr. Samuel Stillman of Boston gave his eulogy. This manuscript opens with: "Memorandum of the state of mind & sum circumstances of Joanna Brown Daughter of Nicholas Brown & Rhoda his whife sic. In her last Illness. She Departed this Life January the 18th at abt 4 after two in the morning aged nineteen years wanting five Days--with a Consumption. On blank day of June being Sunday & a remarkably hot day Joanna was out that afternoon to meeting abt 3 OC there came up a Hard squall of wind & sum rain after meeting she went up to her Aunt Pages and is said she wet her feet however in the evening she went with sum of her young company Sat out under Capt Pages buttonwood trees in his yard and caught such a cold as not to be able to go out of chambers the next day the next day had sum complaints of pain in her side with a fever." Joanna was taken to Newport "for a Sea Upland air" and had an herbal medicine prescribed by Dr Stiles of New York "called by them boneset" but after a visit to "Uncle John B and his wife Nabby" in "Popersquash" in Bristol for several days in July she was no better. "She had taken the P. herb according to direction with such others means as thot advisable while in Newport by Drs Eyers & Easton during which time we had many letters from Dr Eyers & herself most of which rather gave her case to be mending tho with no grait Incouragement at any time However in my own opinion she was no better when returned." Joanna's illness lasted over six months before she died and the writer gives much detail concerning both her illness and the question of how to relay to her that she was likely to die. "About the 22nd of December I wrote a friend that she was very low & as to her state of body could not continue but a little while.Was much wasted and could not sit at the table by herself. She was ready for Gods call & expected grait Love for Christ & Trusting in God.she died with great tranquility of mind.yet Satan was busy about her often darkning & discouraging her tho' afterwards for sum weeks before her end was much more releaved from the influence of the Adversary--see copy of 2nd letter to Mr Stillman ." Presumably Rev. Samuel Stillman had been contacted concerning her imminent demise. The manuscript is unsigned but it was probably written by someone very close to her in her last illness--possibly either a nurse or housekeeper or perhaps some lower level Baptist preacher--not James Manning then pastor of the First Baptist Church-- judging by the spelling. The provenance according to Dan Seigel is "from William Goddard's papers" but the handwriting is not his nor her father's or step-mother's. <br/><br/> unknown books
Rulon-Miller Books · États-Unis1 092,50 $US≈ 924,36 €
