PoliticalGraveyard.com
The Political Graveyard: A Database of American History
Brown-Willing-Byrd family of Providence, Rhode Island

Note: This is just one of 1,325 family groupings listed on The Political Graveyard web site. These families each have three or more politician members, all linked together by blood, marriage or adoption.

This specific family group is a subset of the much larger Four Thousand Related Politicians group. An individual may be listed with more than one subset.

These groupings — even the names of the groupings, and the areas of main activity — are the result of a computer algorithm working with the data I have, not the choices of any historian or genealogist.

  Thomas Willing (1731-1821) — of Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pa. Born in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pa., December 19, 1731. Lawyer; merchant; city court justice, 1759; justice of the court of common pleas, 1761; mayor of Philadelphia, Pa., 1763-64; justice of Pennsylvania state supreme court, 1767; Delegate to Continental Congress from Pennsylvania, 1775; banker. Died in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pa., January 19, 1821 (age 89 years, 31 days). Interment at Christ Church Burial Ground, Philadelphia, Pa.
  Relatives: Son of Anne (Shippen) Willing and Charles Willing; brother of Elizabeth Willing (who married Samuel Powel); married 1763 to Anne McCall; nephew of Edward Shippen (1703-1781) and William Shippen; uncle of Charles Willing Byrd; granduncle of John Brown Francis; great-grandson of Edward Shippen (1639-1712); great-grandfather of Edward Overton Jr.; second great-grandfather of James Rieman Macfarlane; second great-granduncle of Francis Fisher Kane; first cousin of Edward Shippen (1729-1806); first cousin twice removed of Edward Shippen (1823-1904); first cousin thrice removed of Bertha Shippen Irving.
  Political families: Shippen-Byrd family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Brown-Willing-Byrd family of Providence, Rhode Island (subsets of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also congressional biography — Govtrack.us page — Wikipedia article — Find-A-Grave memorial
  John Brown (1736-1803) — of Rhode Island. Born in Providence, Providence County, R.I., January 27, 1736. Merchant; banker; member of Rhode Island state house of representatives, 1782-84; U.S. Representative from Rhode Island at-large, 1799-1801. Slaveowner. Died in Providence, Providence County, R.I., September 20, 1803 (age 67 years, 236 days). Interment at North Burial Ground, Providence, R.I.
  Relatives: Son of James Browne and Hope (Power) Browne; uncle of Benjamin Brown; grandfather of John Brown Francis; second cousin twice removed of John Appleton and Jane Pierce; second cousin thrice removed of Selucius Garfield; second cousin four times removed of Daniel Parrish Witter, Charles Darwin Garfield and Arthur Taggard Appleton; third cousin twice removed of William Sprague (1799-1856); third cousin thrice removed of Augustus Brown Reed Sprague and William Sprague (1830-1915).
  Political family: Brown-Willing-Byrd family of Providence, Rhode Island (subset of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also congressional biography — Govtrack.us page — Wikipedia article
  Benjamin Brown (1756-1831) — of Massachusetts. Born in Swansea, Bristol County, Mass., September 23, 1756. Physician; member of Massachusetts state house of representatives, 1809, 1811-12, 1819; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts 16th District, 1815-17. Died in Waldoboro, Lincoln County, Maine, September 17, 1831 (age 74 years, 359 days). Interment at Waldoboro Cemetery, Waldoboro, Maine.
  Relatives: Nephew of John Brown.
  Political family: Brown-Willing-Byrd family of Providence, Rhode Island (subset of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also congressional biography — Govtrack.us page
  Charles Willing Byrd (1770-1828) — of Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pa.; Hamilton County, Ohio. Born in Charles City County, Va., July 26, 1770. Lawyer; secretary of Northwest Territory, 1800-03; delegate to Ohio state constitutional convention from Hamilton County, 1802; Governor of Northwest Territory, 1802-03; U.S. District Judge for Ohio, 1803-28; died in office 1828. Died in Sinking Spring, Highland County, Ohio, August 25, 1828 (age 58 years, 30 days). Interment at Byrd Cemetery, Sinking Spring, Ohio.
  Relatives: Son of William Byrd III and Mary Shippen (Willing) Byrd; married, April 6, 1797, to Sarah Waters Meade; married, October 8, 1818, to Hannah Miles; nephew of Thomas Willing; grandson of Charles Willing; grandnephew of Edward Shippen (1703-1781) and William Shippen; great-granduncle of Connally Findlay Trigg and Richard Evelyn Byrd; second great-grandson of Edward Shippen (1639-1712); second great-granduncle of Harry Flood Byrd; third great-granduncle of Harry Flood Byrd Jr.; first cousin once removed of Edward Shippen (1729-1806) and John Brown Francis; first cousin twice removed of Edward Overton Jr.; first cousin thrice removed of James Rieman Macfarlane and Francis Fisher Kane; first cousin five times removed of William Welby Beverley; second cousin once removed of Edward Shippen (1823-1904); second cousin twice removed of Bertha Shippen Irving; second cousin thrice removed of Edmund Pendleton; second cousin five times removed of William Bradley Umstead and Angier Biddle Duke; third cousin twice removed of John Penn, John Pendleton Jr. and Nathaniel Pendleton; fourth cousin once removed of James Madison, William Taylor Madison, Philip Clayton Pendleton, Zachary Taylor, Edmund Henry Pendleton and Nathanael Greene Pendleton.
  Political families: Shippen-Byrd family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Byrd-Flood family of Virginia; Brown-Willing-Byrd family of Providence, Rhode Island (subsets of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also federal judicial profile — Wikipedia article — Find-A-Grave memorial
  John Brown Francis (1791-1864) — of Warwick, Kent County, R.I. Born in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pa., May 31, 1791. Democrat. Member of Rhode Island state house of representatives, 1821; member of Rhode Island state senate, 1831, 1845-56; Governor of Rhode Island, 1833-38; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Rhode Island, 1840; U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, 1844-45. Died in Warwick, Kent County, R.I., August 9, 1864 (age 73 years, 70 days). Interment at North Burial Ground, Providence, R.I.
  Relatives: Son of John Francis and Abigail (Brown) Francis; married 1822 to Anne Carter Brown; married 1832 to Elizabeth (Francis) Harrison; grandson of John Brown; grandnephew of Thomas Willing; great-grandson of Charles Willing; great-grandnephew of Edward Shippen (1703-1781) and William Shippen; third great-grandson of Edward Shippen (1639-1712); first cousin once removed of Charles Willing Byrd; first cousin twice removed of Edward Shippen (1729-1806) and Francis Fisher Kane; second cousin once removed of Edward Overton Jr.; second cousin twice removed of James Rieman Macfarlane; third cousin of Edward Shippen (1823-1904); third cousin once removed of Bertha Shippen Irving; fourth cousin of John Appleton and Jane Pierce; fourth cousin once removed of Selucius Garfield.
  Political families: Shippen-Byrd family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Brown-Willing-Byrd family of Providence, Rhode Island (subsets of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also congressional biography — Govtrack.us page — National Governors Association biography — Wikipedia article

"Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard."
Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872
The Political Graveyard

The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. Founded in 1996, it is the Internet's most comprehensive free source for American political biography, listing 338,260 politicians, living and dead.
 
  The coverage of this site includes (1) the President, Vice President, members of Congress, elected state and territorial officeholders in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; and the chief elected official, typically the mayor, of qualifying municipalities; (2) candidates at election, including primaries, for any of the above; (3) all federal judges and all state appellate judges; (4) certain federal officials, including the federal cabinet, diplomatic chiefs of mission, consuls, U.S. district attorneys, collectors of customs and internal revenue, members of major federal commissions; and political appointee (pre-1969) postmasters of qualifying communities; (5) state and national political party officials, including delegates, alternate delegates, and other participants in national party nominating conventions; (6) Americans who served as "honorary" consuls for other nations before 1950. Note: municipalities or communities "qualify", for Political Graveyard purposes, if they have at least half a million person-years of history, inclusive of predecessor, successor, and merged entities.  
  The listings are incomplete; development of the database is a continually ongoing project.  
  Information on this page — and on all other pages of this site — is believed to be accurate, but is not guaranteed. Users are advised to check with other sources before relying on any information here.  
  The official URL for this page is: https://politicalgraveyard.com/families/10001-1148.html.  
  Links to this or any other Political Graveyard page are welcome, but specific page addresses may sometimes change as the site develops.  
  If you are searching for a specific named individual, try the alphabetical index of politicians.  
Copyright notices: (1) Facts are not subject to copyright; see Feist v. Rural Telephone. (2) Politician portraits displayed on this site are 70-pixel-wide monochrome thumbnail images, which I believe to constitute fair use under applicable copyright law. Where possible, each image is linked to its online source. However, requests from owners of copyrighted images to delete them from this site are honored. (3) Original material, programming, selection and arrangement are © 1996-2025 Lawrence Kestenbaum. (4) This work is also licensed for free non-commercial re-use, with attribution, under a Creative Commons License.
What is a "political graveyard"? See Political Dictionary; Urban Dictionary.
Site information: The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. — The mailing address is The Political Graveyard, P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. — This site is hosted by HDLmi.com. — The Political Graveyard opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on February 17, 2025.