BIOGRAPHY: MR. LODOWICK BRAYTON resided in Cranston near the Cranston Furnace. He was born May 25, 1770, and died March 14, 1839. He was a man six feet two inches high, weighted 280 pounds, a giant in stature and strength. He was a well to do farmer and reared a family of thirteen children. His wife had fifteen but two of them died in early childhood. These facts ought to shame some of our modern women, who have only one or two children, and some of them none. According to Bonaparte's rule, Mrs. Lodowick Brayton was one of the great women of the world; for he said 'She is the greatest woman who has borne the most children.' But of these fifteen children there is but one now living, Mr. Samuel H. Brayton, who now lives near the place where he was born, Oct. 13, 1817. If he lives to the 13th, of next October, he will be 73 years old.
Mr. Lodowick Brayton Jr., was born Sept. 28, 1815. He first learned a blacksmith's trade which he carried on successfully a few years, then he purchased the Ore Bed or Cranston Furnace, and managed that successfully, and finally moved it to River Point, where he built a large machine shop and carried on these two branches of business there, in order to obtain railroad accommodations, which he could not have in Cranston. His two sons William and Robert Brayton & Co. continue the same business successfully.
