Brown, James, 1623 - 1710

Born in England around 1619, James Brown, was the son of John and Dorothy Brown.  He immigrated with his family to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1632 and was in Taunton by 1643.  He later removed to Rehoboth and then Swansea, where he was a Baptist preacher.  Brown served as an assistant to the governor (1665-1683) and deputy for Rehoboth (1666) and Swansea (1669-1672).  He held the rank of lieutenant and major in Swansea’s military company.  Because of his family’s relationship with Massasoit, Brown was Plymouth Colony’s messenger to Philip to negotiate peace during King Philip’s War.  Ellery Bicknell Crane, Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Vol. 1 (New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1907), 39.  George William Ellis and John Emery Morris, King Philip’s War (New York: The Grafton Press, 1906), 39-40, 60.