Sophia Augusta Brown Sherman

Sophia Augusta Brown Sherman (April 21, 1867 – June 28, 1947) was an American heiress and socialite who was prominent in New York and Newport society during the Gilded Age. Early life Sophia was born on April 21, 1867, in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the only daughter and youngest of three children born to John Carter Brown and Sophia Augusta (née Browne) Brown (1825–1909), a descendant of Roger Williams, a president of the Colony of Rhode Island. Sophia had two older brothers, John Nicholas Brown I, who married Natalie Bayard Dresser (parents of John Nicholas Brown II, Asst. Secretary of the Navy), and Harold Brown, who married Sophia's stepdaughter, Georgette Wetmore Sherman, in 1892. Reportedly, Sophia was favorite granddaughter of her paternal grandfather, Nicholas Brown Jr., the namesake patron of Brown University, and his wife, Ann (née Carter) Brown, daughter of John Carter, a prominent printer in Providence. Through her father, she was a descendant of Nicholas Brown Sr., brother of John Brown, Moses Brown, and Joseph Brown, all merchants who were active in Rhode Island politics and who brought the College of Rhode Island to Providence in 1771. In 1874, when Sophia was only seven years old, her father died and left the bulk of his estate, besides a $50,000 (equivalent to $ in dollars) donation to Brown University, to his children, including Sophia. Her mother later owned a cottage in Newport on Bellevue Avenue.