Brown, Nicholas definition of Brown, Nicholas in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Brown, Nicholas, 1769–1841, American manufacturer and philanthropist, b. Providence, R.I., grad. Rhode Island College (renamed Brown Univ. Brown University, Providence, R.I.; coeducational chartered 1764 as Rhode Island College at Warren, opened 1765. It moved to Providence in 1770 and was renamed for Nicholas Brown in 1804.
..... Click the link for more information. in 1804 for him), 1786. He extended the internationally known mercantile business of his father, Nicholas Brown. Later his own firm, Brown and Ives, came to control most of the waterpower on the Blackstone River, where his uncle, Moses Brown, and Samuel Slater had pioneered in the cotton textile industry. He was the treasurer (1796–1825) and, for a long period of time, the benefactor of his alma mater. Butler Hospital was founded (1847), in Providence, by his bequest for the care of the mentally ill.

Bibliography

See J. B. Hedges, Browns of Providence Plantations (2 vol., 1952; repr. 1968).