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

Page 82 text:

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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which sailed over the Hellespont ive hundred years, preserved its identity, although every plank and rib in it had been replaced by another.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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The will of Obadiah Brown was made in 1814, at the same time that his father offered to donate the land to the School. The will was also in the handwriting of Moses Brown. The significant thing about it is, that the father and son were so united in this noble undertaking that their names were inseparable in the history of the Institution. No Friends School student can fail to remember with increasing satisfaction and pride that this largest donation to any school in this country at that time, by i55o,ooo, was the product in whole or in part of the first manufacture of pure cotton cloth in this nation. That his school came forth as a direct result from the infant manu- factures of the country, which industry has contributed more to the prosperity of New England than anything else in her annals. Here, then, the School and the textile arts have developed together, set in motion, both of them, by the same noble, humane, and patriotic citizens, and we can well assume that they have, from their feeble beginning, been mutual aids and supports to each other. A Committee was appointed, Sixth Mo., 11th, 1814, to consider of the proposed donation ofiland by Moses Brown, which Com- mittee reported to the Meeting of Sufferings two days later, as follows: The Committee appointed in the case of the dona- tion to the Yearly Meeting School, proposed by our Friend Moses Brown, at the last Meeting, have attended to their appointment, and have viewed the Lot of land proposed to be given, for that purpose, and are of opinion that it affords a pleasant and healthful site to erect such a building upon, that it contains about six or seven acres of pretty valuable wood, beside what the Donor pro- poses to take off, for his own use in a convenient time, for the building if carried into effect, that it is situated about three- fourths of a mile from the compact part of the town of Providence and Friends Meeting House there, and about the same distance from the college, the lot contains a quantity of stone suitable for a part of a building, and in addition to the proposed donation of land, the owner has offered access to his farm adjoining for what stone may be further required. Signed in behalf of the Committee by Samuel Rodmanf' This report was accepted.-XII. for Szj Ref., Vol. ff,f. 169. , The Yearly Meeting on the 14th inst. approved of their action, and in its desire to stimulate interest in the cause, after relating that