In 1762 the Philadelphia Baptist Association determined to form a college in Rhode Island. Rev. Morgan Edwards and Rev. Samuel Jones were placed in charge of the movement. The institution was incorporated in 1762 and was at first in Warren. In 1770 it was removed to Providence and the name was changed to Brown University in 1804.
Doctor Guild in “The First Commencement of Rhode Island College” says: “It is a singular and well-known fact ... that the first funds of the college were obtained from Ireland, in guineas and half-guineas, from Mary Murphy, Susanna Pilson, Joseph Fowke and other members of Protestant churches and societies in Cork, Waterford, Belfast, Ballymony, Coleraine, Londonderry and Dublin. This may be accounted for when we learn that Mr. Edward’s first settlement in the ministry, before coming to this country, was in Cork, where he married his wife (Mary Nunn). The original subscription book, with genuine signatures, is one of the most interesting documents on file in connection with the history of the University.”
Morgan Edwards went to Ireland and England in 1767. The list of his Irish contributors is a long one, and not all were Protestants. There were several Catholic contributors, as shown by the histories of the families in Ireland, still extant. Some of those who contributed were Mary Murphy, Matthew O. Dwyer, Francis Macarthy, Humphrey Crowley, Samuel Neale, Mrs. Luke Kelly, Rachel Connor, John Reilly, James Martin, Samuel McCormick, James Brennan and many others.
In 1769–70, Rev. Hezekiah Smith solicited funds for the college in South Carolina and Georgia. Among his contributors were Malachi Murfee, Edward Dempsey, Charles Reilly, Patrick Hinds, James Welsh, Hugh Dillon, John Boyd, Matthew Roach, John Canty and many others.
Someone has said that the names on the payrolls of the publications controlled by James Gordon Bennett remind one of a Fenian Roster. With as much truth could it be said that the names of the contributors to Brown University in its infancy would be taken for the chief marshal and his staff in a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Providence.
William Edwards, son of Morgan, was graduated from Brown in 1776. Marmaduke Brown was a member of the first Board of Fellows. Another graduate of Brown and afterwards one of its Board of Governors was John Dorrance. George Dorrance and his two sons, George and James, came from Ireland between 1715 and 1720, and settled in the town of Foster. John graduated from Brown and was afterwards president of the Providence Town Council for sixteen years.
Time will not admit of any further treatment of the history of Brown and I will close this part by mentioning the names of only a few of the graduates of Irish birth or ancestry in its early history: James Sullivan, brother of Major-General John Sullivan, received the degree of LL. D. in 1779; John Meredith Read, LL. D., John Mackie, A. B. 1800, M. D. 1813; Andrew Mackie, 1814; Joseph Mulliken, 1817; John Sharp Maginnis, 1844; Joseph Moriarty, 1830; Mark D. Shea and James G. Dougherty, 1865.
We see from this brief account that the Irish race has done its part in the making of Brown. From its inception until today hundreds of its graduates of Irish birth or descent have left its halls and have gone forth into the world, doing honor to their race and to their alma mater. At present it numbers among its students many men and women of that race. The President of the Class of 1910 in the Women’s College is, I understand, a namesake of mine, Miss Lillian Ruth Cosgrove.
We are proud of the part played by our people in the history of Brown, proud of its sons and daughters of our race. We are confident that some day an Irish graduate of Brown will tell the world the whole story of the Irish chapter in the history of Rhode Island; and may we not hope that in the not far distant future we will see on the campus on the hill, along with the statues of Marcus Aurelius and others, a monument perpetuating the memory of the Irish men and women who made the dream of the Irish Bishop Berkeley a living fact.