In this Town on Tuesday last, Mr. Benjamin Brenton, at the advanced age of XCIII years. His ancestor was William Brenton, and like Wm. Coddington, whom he accompanied, he was a rich merchant of Boston, and both came here as the friends and adherents of Mrs. Hutchinson.
The Brenton family were early purchasers of the most fertile parts of this fertile Island - they kept up their correspondence with their friends in England, retained property there, and as it appears, assisted that true friend of religious liberty, Dr. John Clarke, in his pecuniary difficulties, when he was detained in England, laboring for the procurement of our Charter of 1663.
A descendant of the original Wm. Brenton, the great uncle of the deceased, was appointed Surveyor General (we believe of the New England Provinces) in the reign of William & Mary; and the deceased, **in 1758, was an Officer in the Provincial Regiment sent from Rhode-Island as a reinforcement to the troops then besieging Louisburg.
Jahleel Brenton, brother of the deceased, was an Officer in the English Navy, and died an Admiral. His Nephew, the present Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, distinguished himself as a brave officer, and has received high honors. - Another nephew, Capt. Edward Brenton, besides being himself a brave and meritorious Officer, has added to his own merits that of a correct and candid writer. He is the author of the British Naval History, &c. published a few years since.
**The account published a few days later in the Rhode Island American changed this part of the paragragh to read: "the deceased entered early in the Navy and took part in the war of 1756 - was an officer on board a man of war which went from Halifax to the siege of Louisburg, in the year 1758, and was present at the destruction of that important fortress."
