History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

200 History of Swansea
heard of the matter; and to "take off the odium'* of a forced support of
religion, he would make this offer; These petitioners favor a tax; let them
be taxed their proportion, and he would engage that the remaining people
of Rehoboth should voluntarily raise the remainder of the sum; he would
secure this by binding his estate to make good all deficiency for the next
seven years. The Court assented, and sent Standish and Hatherly to
assess the tax on the petitioners. The latter, however, did not take kindly
to the plan, for two years later the Court had to coerce them; and for years
after, this tax was a source of trouble with those meddlers who had proposed
it.
At the time of this last legislation the grand old man had passed the
goal of threescore years and ten. He soon left the pubhc service, and his
remaining days were spent on his estate at Wanamoiset. There he died
in 1662, aged about seventy-eight. His son John had died before him, but
his wife lived until 1674, her ninetieth year.
John Brown's second son James was his father's successor in pubhc
life. In 1653, when Rehoboth formed a train-band, he became ensign, and
the town voted that Lieutenant Hunt and Ensign Brown have leave " to
stand by the honorable bench at Plymouth Court. " In 1665 he succeeded
his feunous brother-in-law, Thomas Willet, as assistant, and although a
leading Baptist of Swansea, was re-chosen to the bench some thirteen years.
He was employed by the Colony in an attempt to avert Philip's War,—the
Indians having for him as high regard as formerly for his father, and
Massasoit having enjoined a continuance of it on his people. James closed
his honored life at Swansea in 1710, aged eighty-seven. His wife was Lydia,
daughter of John Howland the Pilgrim, and with the Browns Mrs. Howland
spent her widowhood. The senior Brown had a grandson John, who in 1685
was one of the associate judges of Bristol County, and was again appointed
in 1699 at the reorganization under the Earl of Bellamont. In all its
generations, the posterity of the great pioneer has done credit to its
ancestry.
— Pilgrim Republic.
Marcus A. Brown
Marcus Aurehus Brown, son of Wilham and Freelove (Wood) Brown,
was bom in Swansea, Mass., Dec. 19, 1819, near what is now Touisset.
He comes from an old New England family of consequence in the days of
the first settlements. From old records and historical documents we ascertain
that John Brown, the first of this fine of Browns, had acquaintance
with the Pilgrims in Leyden, Holland, before the sailing of the " Mayflower"
in 1620, in which vessel he probably was financially interested. He was
originally from England, where he was born in 1574, but we cannot definitely
trace the family in that country. The exact year of his coming to
America is unknown, but in 1636 he was Hving in Duxbury, and in 1643 in
Taunton. He was a man of importance in public affairs, and one of the
leading men of Plymouth Colony. He was assistant for seventeen years
from 1636, served as commissioner of the United Colonies for twelve years
from 1644, and died in Swansea, near Rehoboth, where he had large estates.
Savage gives the date of his death as April 10, 1662, and says that his will,
made three days before his death, provides for the children left to his care
bv his son John, and names his wife Dorothy and son James executors.
This is doubtless the correct date of his death, as his wife Dorothy died
Jan. 27, 1673, or 1674, aged ninety. John Brown 2, born 1636, died in
Rehoboth, in 1660. He married a daughter of WiUiam Buckland, and had
five children,—^John 3, Joseph, Nathaniel, Lydia, and Hannah,—whom he