Please stand in the hallway facing the large Palladian window at the front of the house. John and Sarah Brown’s eldest daughter, Abby married John Francis on New Year’s Day, 1788. John Francis was from an established merchant family in Philadelphia, which had close ties with the Browns. It seems, from newly found family letters, that John Brown created a business partnership with John Francis to convince Francis to stay in Providence after marrying Abby. The second floor of the new house was also the site of the larger of two receptions held for the newlyweds that week. In a letter to a friend, one of the bridesmaids at the wedding, Eliza Bowen, described Abby’s fashionable, trendsetting attire as such:
The bride was dressed in an elegant white satin, a very handsome hat, and suite of the most elegant Brussels, I ever beheld. A white ribbon was clasped around her neck with a pearl star, her shoulder was ornamented with the same, to-gether with her hat. Bracelets set in pearl, with fine strings of the same to bind then on her arm, a handsome watch ornamented with a new chain, finished her dress, to which a graceful bouquet of white flowers must be added.
She then went on to describe the party held at the house a few days later. It was a perfect location with plenty of space because the rooms were not yet complete or furnished:
On Friday Mr. Brown gave a smart ball at his house on the hill. Indeed it will be a most elegant place, we had four rooms lighted up on the second floor, one for a supper, another for cards and two for dancing. We danced in the large chamber of the hall, and continued through the door into the next room, which made the whole length of the house. The rooms are already genteel, but will be elegant when finished and furnished.
The dancing probably took place in the two rooms on the eastern side of the house because those rooms open into one another, much like the rooms directly below them. Much dancing was done that night, and the game of Blind Man’s Buff (often called Blind Man’s “Bluff” in America) was played, during which Abby Brown’s cousin, Obadiah, dressed like a woman to fool the other players.
Abby and John Francis’s wedding was an appropriate way to christen John Brown’s new home as the fashionable venue for parties. Gatherings were also common at the family’s country home and farm called Spring Green in nearby Warwick. Letters and diaries tell us that parties with as many as 26 people rode in carriages to Warwick and Bristol to enjoy time at the country retreats.