WINSOR, RICHARD BROWN

Winsor, Richard Brown (1848-1889), he was born on May 25, 1848, the son of Andrew Winsor (1818-1883), and Mary Jane Brown (1821-1904),

and was named after his maternal grandfather Richard Brown. He was a descendant of Joshua Winsor of Providence in 1638 and also of "the Brown Family"

with direct lineage to Chad Brown a colonial committee-man at Providence in 1640. He graduated Providence Public High School in the Classics Department

in 1864. He graduated Brown University in 1868 with an M.A. He was a member of the Zeta Psi Fraternity. His maternal ancestry to Nicholas Brown made

Richard Brown Winsor in the bloodline of the namesake of Brown University when it was renamed in 1804 from its original appellation: The College in the English

Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a member of the Franklin Society and of the Franklin Lyceum. He followed in his father’s business as a

lumber dealer and bookkeeper in the family firm of Winsor & Brown, Broad Street, corner of Pearl, Providence, Rhode Island, which was first established in 1854 on

Hill's Wharf, Providence, Rhode Island, with his father Andrew and his brother-in-law Joseph Farnum Brown. Brown sold out in 1856 moving to Michigan, but was later

reunited in the firm once again as a copartnership with Andrew Winsor and Joseph Farnum Brown, re-established in August 1865. After the death of Richard Brown

Winsor in 1889 the firm was renamed by Richard's younger brother Andrew (1852-) in 1890 as Andrew Winsor & Company, Lumber Merchants.

FIG. 1 Richard Brown Winsor's business envelope postmarked June 9, 1886, just three and a half years before his demise. Courtesy of the Lupia Numismatic Library-Special Collection-The Chapman Family Archive.

Three of his U. S. large cents were cited in the SS. Crosby and J. N. T. Levick plate and census of 1793 published inAmerican Journal of Numismatics, Volume III, No. 12,

April, 1869. In that photographic plate his cents were Nos. 6, D, and 11, with the latter being the finest known uncirculated broken die Liberty Cap from the Mickley sale in

1867, lot 1934, purchased at $37.50. Also, at the Mickley sale he purchased other all uncirculated cents including lot 1954, a 1795 thick planchet lettered edge for $11; lot 1962,

a 1796 fillet head for $17; lot 1972, a 1798 for $17; lot 2020, an 1822 for $1.75; and lot 2748, a collection of 62 Hard Times Tokens for $11. The priced and named catalogue

for the Mickley sale misspelled Winsor as Windsor. Two years later he purchased two coins for $47.00 : 1791 Small Eagle Washington Cent for $27.00 and the Washington

1805 Medal by Eccleston for $20.00 at the MacKenzie Sale in New York held by Ed Cogan on 9 June, 1869. In 1875, he was a subscriber to Crosby’s Early Coins of America.

In 1885 he joined the Rhode Island Historical Society. Richard Brown Winsor died on December 5, 1889. Six years after his death his coin collection was sold posthumously by

the family estate.

His collection of 1353 lots was sold by the Chapman brothers on December 16-17, 1895. It contained 180 large cents including the NC-2 “Strawberry Leaf” variety, discovery

coin. The Chapman sale of the Winsor collection realized $20,000.

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Bibliography :

Providence Evening Press, May 5, 1864

Providence Evening Press, August 5, 1865

Catalogue of Brown University for 1866, page 12

Annual Report of the School Committee of the City of Providence. (Providence : Hammond, Angell & Co., 1868) :99

Mason’s Coin and Stamp Collectors Magazine, Vol. III, No. 7, July (1869) : 73c; Vol. II, No. 9-12, December (1868) : 87.

American Journal of Numismatics, Volume III, No. 12, April (1869) : 97

Sylvester Sage Crosby, The Early Coins of America; and the laws governing their issue. Comprising also descriptions of the Washington pieces, the Anglo-American tokens, many pieces of unknown origin, of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the first patterns of the United States mint. By Sylvester S. Crosby. (Boston, 1875)

The Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Rhode Island (1881) : 565

Proceedings of the Rhode Island Historical Society for 1888-1889. (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1889) : 114

City Directory of Providence for 1890, page 1036

Brown University Historical Catalogue 1764-1894 (1894) : 229

Denver Post, April 18, 1896

Gengerke, Martin, American Numismatic Auctions, 8^th edition (1990) : 32;

Adams, John W., American Numismatic Literature, Vol. 1, 82, 88

Pete Smith, “American Numismatic Pioneers : An Index to Sources,” Asylum Vol. XXII, No. 3, Consecutive Issue No. 87, Summer (2004) : 302;

The Walter J. Husak Collection, February 15, 2008, Heritage Numismatic Auctions Inc., Catalog No. 460, page 139, where Richard Brown Winsor is erroneously identified as Richard Boswell Winsor, a physician.