• Chronology of the Life of Charles Brockden Brown
• The Correspondents of Charles Brockden Brown 1788-1809

The Correspondents of Charles Brockden Brown in Letters 1788-1809

William Pitt Beers (b. 1765), prominent Albany attorney, William Pitt Beers was a 1785 Yale graduate who became Clerk of Albany County in 1810. Brown admired his 1800 oration on the death of George Washington.

Anthony Bleeker (1770-1827) or "Bleecker," a New York lawyer, was graduated 1791 from Columbia; he was a founder of the New York Historical society, and a would-be poet. Samuel Kettell printed three of Bleecker's poems in Specimens of American Poetry (Boston: 1829), though a great deal of his verse appeared anonymously in New York periodicals, and according to Kendall B. Taft, "was not collected during his lifetime, and most of it now escapes identification" (Minor Knickerbockers, New York: American Book Company, 1947, p. 378.

Joseph Bringhurst, Jr. (1767-1834), an older classmate of Brown's at Robert Proud's Latin School, who studied medicine upon matriculating, later practicing in Wilmington. With Elihu Hubbard Smith he published some of the first American sonnets in The Gazette of the United States in 1791. Brown and Bringhurst both courted Deborah Ferris in 1794-95; Bringhurst married her.

Armit[t] Brown (1768-1832) Brown's younger brother who followed in the footsteps of his older brothers and became a Philadelphia merchant after the dissolution of the Brown Brothers Mercantile firm in 1806.

Elizabeth Linn Brown (1775-1834), daughter of the eminent Presbyterian divine William Linn, "Eliza" married Brown in November of 1804.

James Brown (b. 1762), a partner with his brother Joseph (1764-1807) in the import-export firm (and a grocery store in Edenton, North Carolina), James gave his brother the now-famous literary advice to avoid the "gloom" of his first four novels.

Thomas Pym Cope (1768-1854), Philadelphia merchant and philanthropist, owner of the first Philadelphia to Liverpool packet line, and later a director of the Bank of the United States. His Quaker family housed the traitor Maj. John André during the Revolution. A strong anti-slavery Quaker, Cope commissioned Brown to write a history of the manumission society, which Brown never completed.

John Davidson (d. 1790) a schoolmate at Robert Proud's Latin School, it was Davidson who suggested the idea for The Belles Lettres Club which Brown and his circle began in 1787. In 1788 Brown sent the "Henrietta" Letters to Davidson.

William Dunlap (1766-1839), often called the "Father of American Theater," was the first professional playwright in the United States, writer of the first American tragedy, and a celebrated portrait painter (founder of the National Academy of Design). Dunlap painted the last portrait of Brown in 1809, and completed Brown's first biography, begun by Paul Allen.

Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) a Swiss immigrant to America, was President Thomas Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, and would continue in that post through the first year of the Madison administration. Gallatin was one of the founders of the Anti-Federalist (later Republican) Party. Brown met him at the home of Maria Nicholson in 1798, when Gallatin was under attack in Congress during the anti-French fervor of the XYZ Affair. Brown wrote to him years later to promote his political pamphlets.

John Elihu Hall (1783-1829), Philadelphia attorney and editor of the first American legal periodical, The American Law Journal. Before that, however, Hall published verse and personal essays in Dennie's Portfolio under the pseudonym of "Sedley." His fictional "Memoirs of Anacreon" there were particularly popular. Brown published Hall's miscellany columns The Reflector and Adversaria in The Literary Magazine in 1806; Hall's ode appeared under the pseudonym "Sedley" on p. 78 of the 1806 volume (month?); he also wrote under the pseudonym "Valverdi."

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States. Brown's only letter to the President (which Jefferson kindly answered) accompanied a complementary copy of Brown's novel Wieland.

William Keese (b. 1780), New Yorker who married Brown's sister-in-law Rebecca Linn in 1803.

John Blair Linn (1777-1804), a Presbyterian minister like his father William Linn, J.B. Linn was educated at Columbia (B.A. 1795, M.A. 1797) and Union College (M.A. 1797). A prolific writer, Linn published five volumes of poetry and three of theological prose, and had a play produced in New York, all in the space of a decade. Brown married Linn's sister Elizabeth.

Mary Linn (1782-?), youngest sister of Brown's wife, Elizabeth Linn.

Rebecca Linn (1780-?), younger sister of Brown's wife, Elizabeth Linn.

Susan Linn (1778-?), younger sister of Brown's wife, Elizabeth Linn.

Dr. William Linn (1752-1808), eminent Presbyterian minister and educator, president of Washington College and Queens College (now Rutgers University), and at one time chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives. Linn performed the marriage ceremony of his daughter Elizabeth to Brown on November 15, 1804.

Rev. Samuel Miller (1769-1850), clergyman, studied at University of Pennsylvania 1788-89, ordained 1793, served three churches in New York City where he became a member of the Friendly Society with Brown.

Maria Nicholson, a member of the social circle of Elihu Hubbard Smith, who mentions her several times in his diary.

John Howard Payne (1791-1852) a prolific playwright and actor; he was already a published writer when Brown met him on a convalescent trip in the summer of 1806, having edited the Thespian Mirror, a review of the New York theater. Although his plays and operas, and even his name, are now forgotten, one of his songs, "Home Sweet Home," from his opera Clari: or The Maid of Milan (1823) has become a permanent part of our culture.

Susan Potts, referred to by Smith in his diary as Charles' "mistress" in 1798, though there seems to be a family objection to Brown's relationship with her. Nothing more is known about her, and there are no references to her after 1798.

Robert Proud (1728-1813), Philadelphia historian and educator, Proud taught Latin and Greek at the Friends' Latin School since his emigration from England in 1759; he was headmaster when Brown attended the school, 1781-1787.

John Brodhead Romeyn (1777-1825), a Columbia-educated (B.A. 1795) clergyman. Despite being ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church (1798), Romeyn assumed leadership of the First Presbyterian Church in Schenectady in 1803, where he came in contact with Brown's father-in-law, William Linn, becoming a close family friend just before Brown married into the family. It was Romeyn who communicated to Brown and his wife the death of Rev. Linn in 1808.

Elihu Hubbard Smith (1771-1798), a child prodigy, Yale's youngest graduate in the 18th century (1786), member of the first American school of poetry (the Connecticut Wits), editor of the first anthology of American poetry, and an influential physician trained by Benjamin Rush. It is in the rooms Smith shared with William Johnson that Brown's writing was nurtured, and Smith helped read proofs for Alcuin.

William Wood Wilkins (1773-1795), a lawyer who studied with Philadelphia attorney Alexander Wilcocks at the same time Brown did. Like Brown, he contributed verse and essays to many periodicals during his law study; unlike Brown, he entered the legal profession and showed much promise until struck down by tuberculosis.