John Nicholas Brown Center - Brown University

The John Nicholas Brown II Papers

Biographical Note

John Nicholas Brown (1900-1979) was born on February 21, 1900 in New York City. He was the only child of John Nicholas Brown (1861-1900) and Natalie Bayard Dresser Brown (1869-1950), and nephew to Harold Brown (1863-1900) and Sophia Augusta Brown Sherman.

When John Nicholas Brown was just two months old, his father contracted Typhoid fever. The elder John Nicholas Brown died suddenly on May 1, 1900. While rushing home from England to be at his brother's bedside, Harold too became ill. He died in New York just a few days after arriving home.

The tragic deaths of his father and uncle marked the life of John Nicholas Brown in a number of significant ways. First, as Harold was childless at the time of his death, John Nicholas Brown became sole heir to the family fortune at the tender age of three months. Secondly, the loss of both father and uncle created a vacuum of masculine guidance and support for the young boy John Nicholas Brown soon became. Finally, the public notoriety of having once been "the richest baby in America" would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Natalie Bayard Brown now took as her life's work the management of her son's inheritance. She never remarried, and as her only child, John Nicholas Brown was the center of her life. They were intensely devoted to one another.

Natalie Bayard Brown and John Nicholas Brown in a photograph by Floride Green, 1900.

In addition, Natalie's three sisters (Susan Dresser D'Osmoy, Pauline Dresser Merrill, and Edith Dresser Vanderbilt Gerry) along with her mother-in-law, Sophia Augusta Brown, and her two Brown sisters-in-law (Georgette Sherman Brown and Sophia Brown Sherman), indulged the young boy with care and affection. Surrounded by doting "Aunties" and female cousins, John Nicholas Brown grew up comfortable in the company of women.

Natalie Brown had a profound impact on the man her son became. While he was small, she was notoriously vigilant in protecting him from prying eyes and the pernicious threats of public notoriety. As John was a sickly boy, she ensured that he had the best of everything, and even engaged Dr. Frank Day, a physician, to be part of her household staff. She also instilled in John the deep religiosity and the sense of social responsibility that had been important elements of his father's character and that subsequently would become the mark of his own adult life. Given Natalie's high Victorian morality, as well as her desire not to be parted from her only child, it is not surprising that she chose to send John to St. George's School in Newport rather than to a more distant and well-heeled secondary school.

St. George's school was a small, independent institution newly founded by an Episcopal minister and his unmarried sister. The spiritual and intellectual values espoused by the Rev. John Diman at St. George's were well inculcated in John, who, by age 18, was determined to become his own man. Assured by Brown's President Faunce that his college career "would be made as easy and pleasant for me as possible" at Brown University, the college named for his ancestors, John determined to go to Harvard instead. "I do not wish to have my path made easy for me," he wrote to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a Brown alumnus, who had written urging him to reconsider. "The one thing, above all, which I wish to avoid is to be favoured. Harvard … is so big [that] my name and standing will have nothing to do with my life there."

Indeed, Harvard was a formative experience for John Nicholas Brown. There he discovered kindred spirits in classmates Richmond Keith Kane, Charles S. Niver, Lawrence ("Monk") Terry, Ben Kittredge, John Crocker, Henry F. Colt, and James McLane, with whom he quickly formed deep friendships that would last for the rest of his life. He also found important scholarly mentors in Professors Paul Sachs, A. Kingsley Porter, and E. K. Rand, with whom he would form the Medieval Academy of America in 1925, just three years after graduation. At Harvard, John Brown was able to give free reign to his interests in history, literature and art. Along with Charlie Niver, he developed a unique concentration in the History & Literature of Classical Cultures, and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1922.

John's interests in the fine arts began at an early age. As a boy, he was introduced to the Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram, then working with his mother on the construction of Emmanuel Church in Newport and of their Newport home, Harbour Court. Cram became young John's first male mentor, his friend, and the principal inspiration of his life-long interest in architecture. At St. George's School, John had excelled at writing, particularly verse. However, John's favorite subject was Sacred Studies, a theme that would recur in his later years through his focus on medieval church architecture. Even before he finished his studies at Harvard, he had conceived the notion of donating a chapel to St. George's School, so that students would no longer have to walk five miles to church on Sunday.

In 1921, he approached the trustees with a plan to hire Cram & Ferguson to build a medieval chapel at the school, whose cost he wished to underwrite. Not content with merely paying for the construction, John Nicholas Brown participated actively in planning the chapel's design, even sketching out important features (including the antechapel floor) himself. He was, by his own admission, a frequent sight in the architect's office until the chapel was finally consecrated on April 28, 1928. As Ralph Adams Cram would later put it,

"John was in actuality a vital element in the architectural operations. He joined with my associates and myself in studying and determining the design in all its details, working out the symbolism, criticizing and passing on the decorative elements, even designing portions of the pavement… I am not sure that … this intimate personal association was not one of the greatest educational influences in my life…."

The experience with the St. George's chapel ignited John's lifelong interest in architecture. No sooner had the chapel been consecrated than he embarked on a new architectural project, this time one of historical value-the rehabilitation of the old Brick Market house in Newport. Designed by Peter Harrison and built in the mid-eighteenth century, by the 1920s the Brick Market had fallen into disrepair. John purchased the decaying structure and engaged Norman Isham, an early preservation architect, to guide its reconstruction. The experience expanded his architectural interests into historic preservation, and soon led him to other historic preservation projects, including the rescue of the nineteenth century Arcade building in Providence and the late eighteenth century Slater Mill structure in Pawtucket. This was an enduring commitment; John Brown went on to become a co-founder of the Providence Preservation Society and a major contributor to a variety of preservation groups, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Preservation Society of Newport County.

Travel was an integral part of the artistic process for John Brown. His early travels with his mother had been largely confined to the United States. Once John was in college, however, Natalie Brown grew more adventurous and decided to indulge her passion for things Japanese, and she and John spent the summer of 1919 touring Japan. Immediately after John's graduation from Harvard, the two embarked for a yearlong tour of Europe and the Mediterranean. Some of John's lifelong friends and college chums joined them for portions of the trip, and they visited sites in England, France, Spain, Italy, Palestine and Egypt. Far from a well-earned vacation, John viewed this tour as a continuation of his studies at Harvard.

John Nicholas Brown (second from right, on camel) was photographed in Egypt with his mother (standing, third from left) on his 23rd birthday.

He left for Europe, he said, "to put into practice what had been taught me in college. "It was to be the first of many such trips over the course of his lifetime. During the 1920s, his travel interests focused on Medieval cathedrals and other religious sites, particularly in Spain and France. On these occasions, he brought with him the latest photographic equipment to create a visual record of places he found particularly inspiring. Photographs and notes taken during his 1926 tour of France and Spain, during the period when the St. George's chapel was under construction, offer demonstrable evidence of where John found the inspiration for many elements of the chapel's design.

After a frustrated attempt to take on a role in the family office, where the imposing figure of Frank Matteson still held sway, John Nicholas Brown determined that his future lay in the fine arts, and he returned to Harvard in the fall of 1926 to pursue graduate study in that area. He completed the A. M. degree in 1928 after two years of coursework focused in historic architecture, Christian iconography and the history of painting. During these years, the establishment of the Medieval Academy of America, to which JNB was elected Treasurer, provided a stimulating intellectual environment for the growth and elaboration of his growing understanding of the role of art in society. In 1927, under the tutelage of Paul Sachs, Director of Harvard's Fogg Museum, he began to collect Old Master drawings along with paintings, and established a source network of museums, dealers and collectors across Europe. In 1929, he chartered a steam powered yacht, the S. Y. Iolanda, for a four month cruise of the Mediterranean so that he and a group of friends (including Keith Kane and Ralph Adams Cram) could tour classical ruins and early Christian sites in Italy, Greece, Turkey and the Aegean islands. Under the guidance of the Byzantine Institute's Tom Whittemore, John wrote, "we saw unfolded the full sweep of the Byzantine past." John would subsequently join Whittemore's Byzantine Institute, and he became a primary benefactor of its efforts to uncover Christian mosaics in Istanbul's Hagia Sophia.

The most profound change in John's life occurred when he met Anne Seddon Kinsolving, a reporter for The Baltimore News, at Keith Kane's wedding in 1930. Although they moved in the same circles, Anne was unlike the society girls John had previously encountered. A lively wit and a devotee of music, Anne was in many respects John's female counterpart. At the height of their whirlwind courtship, Anne suffered an attack of acute appendicitis. Alarmed, John flew to her hospital bed and proposed marriage. Anne accepted, while still, as she later put it, "under the ether." They married in October of that year, and set off for a yearlong honeymoon in Europe.

On their return, the Browns made their home in the house in which John's father had grown up, 357 Benefit Street in Providence, which John purchased from his Aunt Sophia and had renovated in 1922. Now imbued with all the responsibilities of family life, John began to engage seriously the family business enterprise. Meanwhile, Anne set about trying to make a place for herself in Providence. Disdained at many turns by local society matrons who resented the considerable expertise in the performing arts that Anne had acquired during her years as a music and theatre critic at the Baltimore News, she nevertheless created an engaging home environment at 357 Benefit Street, enlivening John's life with "thrilling nights of chamber music" and "many delightful reaches of the mind."

John Nicholas Brown often described his marriage as "the one true, deep, and complete happiness of my life." In their various enterprises, whether socializing, parenting, working on charitable causes, or sailing, John and Anne worked well as a team.

John and Anne bike riding in Newport, Rhode Island, 1930s.

Their interests were in many respects complimentary. With Anne, John embraced new interests that were consonant with hers: he took up the cello, renewed his interest in sailing and turned ever more inexorably toward the modern in art. Together, they built a modern vacation home on Fisher's Island, where Anne's family had spent their summers for many years. Designed by modernist California architect Richard Neutra, the house incorporated many unique features, including Dymaxion bathrooms designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, a rubber floor, and Scandinavian furnishings, which were not yet in vogue.

The Great Depression found John establishing himself in public service and family life. In 1933, President Roosevelt appointed him to head the Rhode Island division of the Public Works Administration (PWA), one of the many New Deal agencies. In 1935, this agency was succeeded by the Rhode Island State Planning Board, of which John was appointed Chair by Gov. Theodore Francis Green. During World War II, John was Chair of the Newport Council of Defense, charged with evacuation planning and civil defense. He was also elected to the Newport Representative Council and chaired the War Fund Campaign for the Rhode Island Red Cross in 1944 and 1945. In the interim, Anne gave birth to their three children: Nicholas in 1932, John Carter in 1934 and Angela Bayard in 1938. She also encouraged John to pursue sailing for recreation. They bought their first sailing yacht, a schooner they renamed Saraband, in 1933, and raced her successfully from 1934 through 1936.

Early in 1945, John was appointed special cultural advisor to General Eisenhower, attached to the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Commission, which worked to identify and restore public artworks looted by the Nazis. Stationed with the MFA&A at U. S. Group Control in Germany, John worked tirelessly to locate and return public sculptures and artworks to the places from which they had been taken during the Nazi occupation. After months of confronting an Army bureaucracy that was singularly unsuited to the task he had been charged with, John returned home in frustration, feeling he could be more effective on this side of the Atlantic, lobbying Washington relative to arts policy. Within months of his return, he was tapped to Chair the committee charged with making a pitch for Rhode Island as the headquarters site for the newly formed United Nations Organization. Then, in November 1946, he was appointed by President Truman as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air. He held this post for two and a half years, becoming the public face and voice of naval aviation and the first member of the Armed Forces secretariat to fly a plane. He resigned in March 1949 to return to Rhode Island, "weary from a wonderful experience and wiser, I hope, in the ways of the world."

John Nicholas Brown, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, on July 7, 1948, inspecting a Lockheed type Jet Trainer at the Naval Air Station, Pawtuxet River, Rhode Island.

That same year saw the launch of Bolero, a 50-foot waterline yawl designed by Sparkman & Stephens. John Nicholas Brown raced Bolero for the next six seasons, and the care of this sailing yacht, along with the planning and organization that the race season required, occupied much of his time for the following six years. During these years, JNB's absorption in Bolero and her activities was supplemented by his involvement with the New York Yacht Club, of which he had been elected Commodore. Although he sold Bolero in 1955, he continued racing with a series of smaller custom-built yawls, successively named Volta, Mazurka, and Malagueña.

In 1954, John was appointed Chair of the Harvard University Committee for the Visual Arts (CVA), for the purpose of examining the role of fine arts in the university curriculum. Participation in this project renewed John's involvement in the role of the fine arts in the public sphere-a cause always very close to his heart. Given free reign by Harvard's President Pusey, the Committee spent months investigating arts education with museum professionals as well as college and university faculty. Its conclusions ruffled feathers at Harvard, which JNB did his level best to smooth. After several drafts were vetted by Harvard faculty and administrators, the final report was published in May 1956. Although many of its specific recommendations for Harvard were never implemented, to this day the CVA report is considered one of the most important statements on the role the fine arts should play within the general university curriculum.

John Brown's emphasis on what he once called "the visual" (Brown University Class Day speech, June 3, 1960) made him a natural choice as a museum trustee. Although he had played a significant role at the RISD Museum in the 1930s, his national presence in the museum field would not begin in earnest until 1957, when he was appointed by President Eisenhower to serve on the President's Committee on an American Armed Forces Museum (which subsequently became the National Armed Forces Museum Advisory Board under the Kennedy Administration). It was from this post that he was recruited by Leonard Carmichael, then-Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to join the Smithsonian's Board of Regents and to Chair the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery Commission, two posts that he would hold for the remainder of his life. John's involvement with the Smithsonian was perhaps the most fulfilling of his later years. Here, at last, he was able to affect his vision of the important role to be played by the humanities and arts in the public sphere. In 1975, he was awarded the Joseph Henry medal by the Smithsonian for his long and distinguished service on the National Armed Forces Museum Advisory Board.

After 1949, however, the bulk of John's energies went into "Rhode Island affairs." His principle preoccupations were the Providence Preservation Society, of which he was co-founder in 1956 and later Chairman of the Board, and his turn as Chairman of the Building & Planning Committee at Brown University after 1962. These two commitments put John into constant contact with both the unique colonial structures of Providence and distinguished modern architects, re-igniting his passion for architecture. However, his interests in the public life of Rhode Island during these years were diverse, and also included long stints as director or trustee of the Rhode Island Foundation, the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority, the Rhode Island Council on the Arts, Arts Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Foundation for the Arts at Newport, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Preservation Society of Newport County, and Impact Rhode Island, Inc., as well as his alma mater, St. George's School.

The last fifteen years of John's remarkable life were characterized by declining health, as chronic heart disease began to take its toll. He consulted the reknowned Dr. Bernard Lown at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, who, according to Anne, kept John alive once his heart began to fail. Never one to sit still, John Nicholas Brown continued to pursue an active life in spite of his ill health, holding on to his various trusteeships and maintaining a schedule that included generous attention to travel, the fine arts and sailing. Indeed, it was after celebrating with his two sons in Washington, D.C., that he collapsed and died on his last sailing yawl, the Malagueña, at Annapolis, Maryland, on October 8, 1979.

Anne S. K. Brown (1905-1985) and her children, J. Carter Brown (1934-2002), Nicholas Brown, and Angela Fischer.

Biographical Outline

1900 Born February 21 in New York City.
John Nicholas Brown I died on May 1 in Providence of typhoid fever.

1904 John Carter Brown Library building, sponsored by Natalie Bayard Brown in honor of her late husband, John Nicholas Brown I, dedicated.

1912 Began study as a day student at St. George's School in Newport.

1918 Graduated from St. George's School in May.
Enrolled at Harvard in September, corresponding enlistment in Naval Reserves.

1919 Spent summer traveling in Japan with NBB.

1921 Achieved majority on February 21.
Approached St. George's School concerning the donation of chapel.

1922 Graduated from Harvard Magna Cum Laude.
Began a one-year tour of Europe and the Mediterranean with NBB and college friends.

1924 Groundbreaking for the chapel at St. George's School.

1925 Medieval Academy founded.

1926 Toured Cathedrals in France and Spain during the summer months.
Began graduate study at Harvard.

1927 Began collecting Old Master drawings.

1928 Completed graduate study at Harvard with a terminal A.M. degree.
St. George's Chapel completed and consecrated.
Purchased and began restoration of the Brick Market in Newport.

1929 Founded St. Dunstan's College of Sacred Music in Providence.
Became President of the Byzantine Institute.

1930 On October 18, married Anne Seddon Kinsolving of Baltimore, and began a yearlong honeymoon trip in Europe.
Brick Market restoration completed.

1931 Gave lifetime tenure at Harbour Court to NBB as a Christmas gift.

1932 Birth of son Nicholas.

1933 Appointed by FDR to the PWA board for Rhode Island (succeeded by Rhode Island State Planning Board).
Chartered Schooner Princess, then bought her and renamed her Saraband.

1934 Birth of son John Carter (II), called Carter.
Elected a Fellow of Brown University.

1935 Appointed by Rhode Island Governor Theodore Francis Greene to the Rhode Island State Planning Board, successor to the PWA board for Rhode Island

1936 Bought "Holiday Hill" cottage on Fisher's Island and refurbished it as a 40th Anniversary present for his in-laws, the Rev. Arthur B. Kinsolving and Sally Bruce Kinsolving.
Bought John Brown House and opened it for the benefit of St. Dunstan's School.

1937 Contracted with architect Richard Neutra to construct a modernist house on Fisher's Island, New York.

1938 Birth of daughter Angela Bayard.
Neutra house, called Windshield, completed and damaged by the Great Hurricane of September 1938.

1939 Elected a trustee of St. George's School.

1940 Appointed Evacuation Marshal for the Newport Council of Defense.

1941 Presented the John Brown House to the Rhode Island Historical Society.

1943 Elected Member of Newport Representative Council for Ward Four.

1944 Rescued the Arcade building from destruction, and arranged for its purchase by the Rhode Island Association for the Blind.
Chaired War Fund Campaign for the Rhode Island Red Cross.

1945 Appointed to Eisenhower's staff as civilian head of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Commission.

1946 Chaired Committee to bring the UN headquarters to Rhode Island.
Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air by President Truman.

1949 Resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air. Elected an honorary Naval aviator.
Bolero launched.

1950 NBB dies at home at Harbour Court.
Bolero wins a number of races.

1951 JNB elected Commodore of the New York Yacht Club.
Bolero wins the King's Cup in the New York Yacht Club cruise.

1952 Bolero wins the Newport to Bermuda race.

1953 Attended Coronation of Elizabeth II.
Bolero wins Annapolis Race.

1954 Bolero wins Latifa Cup in the Bermuda Race.

1955 Elected a member of the Walpole Society.
Bolero sold.

1957 Appointed by President Eisenhower to the Committee for an Armed Forces Museum, and became a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution.
World cruise with ASKB aboard the H.M.S. Caronia.
Nicholas Brown marries Diane Vernes in Paris.

1959 Appointed by President Eisenhower as Trustee of the National Cultural Center (later the JFK Center for the Performing Arts).
Elected Chair of the National Portrait Gallery Commission
Volta completed and launched.

1962 Served on Committee to new head of Smithsonian Institution.

1963 Angela Bayard Brown marries Dr. Edwin Garry Fischer.
Windshield sold to Fisher's Island Country Club.

1970 Honored by the John Carter Brown Library on his 70th birthday.
Celebrated 40th Wedding Anniversary at party organized by daughter Angela.

1971 Collapsed at 357 Benefit Street; hospitalized for 3 days.
Opening of the National Portrait Gallery.

1972 Hospitalized at Peter Bent Brigham for cardiac care. Resigned many of his trustee positions, including St. George's School, Rhode Island Foundation, Secretary of the Corporation of Brown University, and Naval War College Foundation.
Contracts for the building of Mazurka.

1973 Awarded honorary Doctor of Laws by Brown University.

1975 50th Anniversary of the Medieval Academy of America. JNB is featured speaker.
Took Mazurka to Europe for a month of sailing in the Baltic.

1976 Suffered heart failure while in Arizona, and confined to hospital. Later in the year, while visiting son Nicholas in Paris, suffered a mild heart attack.
Speech from JCB Associates meeting published as "Urbanism in the American Colonies."
Malagueña built.

1977 Hospitalized for 10 days in May. Resigned from the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority in protest of new state Conflict of Interest reporting requirements, effective as of December 31, 1975.

1978 Honored by the Smithsonian Institution for his long service as a Regent, and awarded Distinguished Service Medal by the Providence Preservation Society.

1979 Awarded Providence Art Club medal for lifetime devotion to the arts.
Died October 9 in Annapolis, Maryland, aboard his yawl Malagueña.

Bibliography

Works authored or co-authored by John Nicholas Brown

"Address of Mr. John Nicholas Brown at Jamestown, Virginia, May 16, 1941," William & Mary Quarterly, 2nd Series, Vol. 21, no. 3 (July 1941), p. 255.

Harvard Class of 1922: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1947), S.v. Brown, John Nicholas.

Harvard Class of 1922: Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1957), S.v. Brown, John Nicholas.

Harvard Class of 1922: Fiftieth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1972), S.v. Brown, John Nicholas.

Report of the Committee on the Visual Arts at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1956)

Brown, John Nicholas, "The Chapel," St. George's School Alumni Bulletin, Vol. IX, no. 2 (March 1924), pp. 8-11.

Brown, John Nicholas, Forty master drawings from the collection of John Nicholas Brown: Harvard Class of 1922, Fortieth Reunion, Summer 1962 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Fogg Art Museum, 1962).

Brown, John Nicholas, Urbanism in the American Colonies (Providence, Rhode Island: Associates of the John Carter Brown Library, 1976).

Works About John Nicholas Brown

Brown, Anne Seddon Kinsolving. "John Nicholas Brown: Tributes from the Young," Rhode Island History, Vol. 40, no. 1 (February 1981), pp. 2-15.

Doll, John G, Heart of the Hilltop: the St. George's School Chapel (Newport, R.I.: St. George's School, 2003).

Lehman, Milton, "World's Richest Baby Joins the Navy," The Saturday Evening Post, August 23, 1947, pp. 22-23, 40-42.

Libros Virumque Cano Gaudeamus: The Gifts of John Nicholas Brown to the John Carter Brown Library from 1924 to 1969, A Tribute on his seventieth birthday, 21 February 1970 (Providence, Rhode Island: The Associates of the John Carter Brown Library, 1971).

Neumann, Dietrich (ed.), Richard Neutra's Windshield House (New Haven: Yale University Press and Harvard Design School, 2001).

Works Mentioning John Nicholas Brown and his Activities

Cram, Ralph Adams, My Life in Architecture (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1936)

Heyman, Barbara B., Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992)

Howe, Thomas Carr, Jr., Salt Mines and Castles: The Discovery and Restitution of Looted European Art (Indianapolis, Indiana: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1946).

MacGregor, Morris J., Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 (Washington, D. C.: Center for Military History, U. S. Army, 1985)

Nicholas, Lynn H., The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).

Simpson, Elizabeth, The Spoils of War: World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Publishers, in association with The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, 1997)

Taverner, Gilbert Y., St. George's School, A History: 1896-1986 (Newport, Rhode Island: St. George's School, 1987).

Other Works Pertaining to the Papers of John Nicholas Brown

McLane, James Latimer, Jr., Spindrift (Boston: Four Seas Co., 1920)
-- Driftwood (Boston: Four Seas Co., 1919).
[Poetry collections discussed in McLane's correspondence to JNB]

Rider, Hope S, Valour Fore & Aft: Being the Adventures of America's First Naval
Vessel (Newport, R.I.: Seaport '76 Foundation, 1978; earlier edition by Naval
Institute Press at Annapolis, 1977).
[Relative to Sloop Providence and Seaport '76; cost of publication underwritten by JNB]