History of Brown University

The history of Brown University spans two hundred and fifty years. Chartered in 1764 as "the College or University in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, in America" and known in its early years as Rhode Island College, Brown's history is closely related to that of Rhode Island and greater New England.

In 1763, The Reverend James Manning, a Baptist minister and an alumnus of the College of New Jersey (predecessor to today's Princeton University), was sent to Rhode Island by the Philadelphia Association of Baptist Churches in order to found a college. Providence Plantations, having been the colony founded by Baptist exile and church founder, Roger Williams in the 1630s. At the same time, local Congregationalists, led by future Yale College president Ezra Stiles, were working toward a similar end. The inaugural board meeting of the Corporation of the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations was held in the Old Colony House in Newport, Rhode Island. Former Royal Governors of Rhode Island under King George III Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward as well as leading Baptists the Reverend Isaac Backus and the Reverend Samuel Stillman were among those who played an instrumental role in Brown's foundation and later became American revolutionaries. On March 3, 1764, a charter was filed to create the College, reflecting the work of both Stiles and Manning. The university charter was executed under the authority of King George III.

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