Avis Binney was born in 1731 in the Province of Massachusetts Bay and remained there until her marriage into one of Providence’s most notable families. She was the daughter of Captain Barnabus Binney, a prominent mariner in the northeast. In September 1785, Nicholas Brown, of the Providence Brown family, took Avis Binney as his second wife. Nicholas was one of five sons of James Brown, Jr. and Hope Power. He was only two years older than Avis but died just six years into their marriage, in 1791. All three of Nicholas Brown’s children—Nicholas Jr., Hope, and John Brown—were born to his first wife, Rhoda Jenckes. It was his son Nicholas Brown, Jr. who later donated $5000 to the College of Rhode Island, which shortly thereafter became Brown University.

Upon her husband’s death Avis Brown received a large part of his estate. Now a wealthy and elderly widow, with her stepchildren mostly grown, Avis turned her attention to the suffering of poor women and children in Providence. In 1800, together with seven other wealthy women, Avis co-founded the Providence Female Charitable Society (PFCS), an organization that was the first of its kind in Providence (and among the first anywhere). Incorporated by the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1802, the charter and constitution of the society stated that the aim of the organization was to help indigent women and children in the town of Providence. Avis Brown and Lydia Clark were the first two co-directors of the society. The directors led every meeting and guided the society in day-to-day operations. In order for applicants to receive aid, mothers “must put to service or trade such of her children as are fit, and to place the younger ones of a proper age a schools.” The society never offered money; instead it provided necessities such as clothing, food and shelter.

In a sermon delivered on behalf of the PFCS, Trinity Church rector Theodore Dehon described the organization as “a society composed of those whom the God of nature formed to be ministers of kindness; and who have chosen for the objects of their compassionate care those most pitiable sufferers in the vale of sorrow, the indigent widows and children.” Most historical work on middle and upper class women and reform focuses on the 1820s and later, but Avis Brown and the women of the PFCS reveal links between that later period and earlier notions of philanthropy that were forged in the colonial era. The society has changed its focus over the years but still operates today.

On 10 August 1807, Avis Brown died in Providence. She was buried in the North Burial Ground Cemetery in Providence alongside her husband Nicholas and his first wife. Her gravestone reads, "She possessed superior power of mind and was well versed in books and useful learning."

Zakary Pereira, Student at Rhode Island College

Further Reading:

Providence Female Charitable Society. The Charter and Constitution of the Providence Female Charitable Society. Providence: Printed by John Carter, 1801. (Available at the Rhode Island Historical Society Library)

Rappleye, Charles. Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade and the American Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006.