Brown, William, 1744-1821

William Brown was a Quaker who spent most of his life in the Delaware Valley and on Nantucket.

Brown was born in 1744 to Ebenezer Brown and Elizabeth Ives Brown of Newton, Gloucester County, New Jersey (now Camden). In 1760 he moved across the Delaware River to Philadelphia. In 1765 Brown relocated farther afield to the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he married local resident Dorcas Barney in 1770. In 1773 the couple moved back to the Delaware Valley and settled near Wilmington, Delaware, where they stayed for seven years. In early 1780 the family briefly relocated south to the area around Smyrna, but moved north again to Philadelphia in summer 1781. After seven years in Philadelphia, Brown and his family returned to Nantucket in 1788. The family stayed on the island until 1806, when they moved to the vicinity of North Easton, New York; it seems that William and Dorcas stayed there the rest of their lives. Brown died in late 1821.