The John Brown House is an 18th-century mansion on College Hill built for merchant John Brown, one of Providence's early power brokers and a major benefactor of Brown University. The house shows the wealth, taste, and contradictions of the city's maritime elite at the time when Providence was growing through trade, including the slave trade.
It is now run as a historic house museum. Pair it with the RISD Museum, the Providence Athenaeum, and a walk along Benefit Street to get a fuller sense of old Providence.