Please enter the next bedchamber to the right of the portraits, on the left side of the hallway.
We interpret this room as the bedchamber of Sally Brown and her children. In 1800 Sally married German immigrant Carl Friedrich Herreshoff and moved to New York City. By the time of her father’s death in 1803, Sally and Carl, who was then known as Charles, had two children, at which point she and her family moved back to Rhode Island to be closer to her family. The couple had four more children while living here. Unfortunately, Sally raised them mostly without her husband’s presence. Charles was increasingly away working on John Brown’s parcel of land in upstate New York, and then in 1819, he committed suicide.
Because there are no probate inventories for this house in the early nineteenth century, we have had to make educated guesses about how rooms were used. A bedroom such as this could have been shared by Sally and her children. Starting in the late 18th century, certain rooms began being specified as “nurseries,” a space designated for mothers to stay with their newly born babies, or the bedroom shared by a mother and her small children. This room is certainly large enough to have been shared by Sally and her six children.
Again, numerous family activities probably took place here, such as having meals and entertaining. This room, and others throughout the house, would have been filled with the noises and laughter from children’s play. The toys you see here actually belonged to John Brown Francis, son of Abby Brown, and he lived and played in this house, as well.