Lyceum Phoenix of Friends School - Phoenix Echo Yearbook (Providence, RI)

Page 81 text:

With desires that this important subject may be considered, and proceeded in in conformity to the mind of Truth, that we may hope for its blessing, I conclude, your affectionate friend, Moses Brownf, This land was deeded to us in 1816, and is the lot upon which the School was then constructed and now stands. The attempt has been made to strip us of our ancient date of 1784, and to assert that our beginning was really First Mo., First, 1819. We can have no doubt about the continuity and identity of the School from 1784 to 1819, and so on to the present date. There were funds from the first, continuing through all to the present time, held in trust by the same Yearly Meeting, known as The Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, not incorporated by statute until 1823, but nevertheless a quasi corporation like a parish, holding in trust for charitable or school uses. The treasurer was from iirst to last the same Moses Brown. The sum of nine thousand three hundred dollars came from the School of 1784, to the present one. The effort to renew and re- open was constantly, year by year, before the meeting, and nothing but evil ti1nes and misfortune extended the vacation far longer than was intended or expected, but one eternal purpose, one earnest soul, knew no faltering and overcame at last all obstacles. The unity, identity, and continuity were sustained in the same hands from first to last. The Grecian galley, which sailed over the Hellespont ive hundred years, preserved its identity, although every plank and rib in it had been replaced by another. Its iden- tity of form was perpetual. But there were in charge of Friends School the same persons, holding the same property, the same pur- pose dominated it. Harvard College was interrupted and sent to Concord fourteen months, immediately after the skirmish at Lex- ington, but nobody dates the University from the hour of their return to Cambridge. Brown University was at Warren, R. I., until 177o, and was called Rhode Island College: it was trans- ported to Providence in that year, its name changed afterwards to Brown University, but what is more to the point, all the college exercises were suspended from the 12th Mo., 7th, 1776, to 5th Mo. 27th, 1782, a period of six years, and yet no one ever dated the college from 1782, but from 1764, the date when it was organized to run through its ever changing and once interrupted history. We might continue to furnish instances in abundance, but we can- not contribute more at present.

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done for a religious and guarded education of youth.- Y. Ill. Rec., Vol. ff, jv. 167. The accumulated fund of the School, beginning with the rem- nant of the Portsmouth School of 1788, was reported to the Yearly Meeting, in 1801, as amounting to f3,837.4O, a large sum for the period. The Committee was appointed to revive the School. Moses Brown and his son Obadiah, the two greatest benefactors the School has ever had to this day, men of blessed memory, were on that committee. Eight thousand dollars were tendered to the School i11 1802, upon condition that another eight thousand be subscribed. The meeting in 1803 found itself unable to secure the desired sum of eight thousand, and thus failed of securing the six- teen thousand dollars. Little more was done of importance, except enthusiastic discussion on the subject, until 1810, when the Yearly Meeting appointed a committee which reported, in 181 1', the fund to be about 88,ooo, and they then asked to have the Yearly Meet- ing direct the Meeting for Sufferings to re-open the School. Moses and Obadiah Brown were both onthat committee, with Moses at the head of it. The matter of opening the School went to the Meeting for Sufferings in 1812, and that meeting took jurisdiction, and attempted to begin again, when the war of 1812 threw its blight across its pathway-the second war it had encountered. There were scanty harvests in that year, which increased very seriously their- difficulty. Nothing had been done in 1813 but the creation of an earnest purpose, to begin as soon as the reasonable opportunity appeared. The eventful year of 181.1 followed, which was to be the era of the glorious dawn of light, and the hour of the revival of Friends School through the noble beneficence of its illustrious founder, who had been its faithful treasurer from the beginning, and only ceased to labor for it when he had gone to his final rest in 1836. Moses Brown announced to the Meeting for Sufferings, o11 the Fourth day of Fourth Mo., 1814. I have, for the furtherance of these desirable objects, concluded to give a tract of land o11 the west part of my homestead farm, containing about forty-three acres, for the purpose of erecting suitable buildings for the Board- ing School thereon ..... ' As treasurer of the School Fund, I may for your information mention, that its present amount is about 11ine thousand three hun- dred dollars.

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