Isaac H. Brown Explained

Isaac H. Brown (1812-1880) was the sexton at Grace Church in Greenwich Village, and arbiter of style in Manhattan where he planned weddings, arranged soirées and funerals for the wealthy of New York City.^{[1] [2]} His contribution to high society was so essential, a society journalist reported in 1850, that without him, "the ladies of our fashionable world would be at a loss to fill up their lists, the young gentlemen be without a patron, the carriages would stray about like lost sheep, the servants be wayward and fitful in their movements, and the whole charm of our social assemblages be gone."^[3]

Notes and References

1. News: Alan Feuer . Alan Feuer . A Sycophant's Sycophant . . July 11, 2010 . 2010-07-12 .
2. News: Death Of Sexton Brown. The Veteran Of Grace Church Dies In Connecticut. Malarial Fever The Cause. His Career From The Days When He Was A Carpenter . Isaac H. Brown, the venerable sexton of Grace Church, died yesterday morning at Branford, a little village a few miles north of New-Haven, Conn. He had been a leading figure in Metropolitan society for nearly half a century, having had charge of most of the fashionable weddings and many of the funerals of noted personages among the Knickerbocker families. . . August 23, 1880 . 2010-07-12 .
3. Book: Mitchell, Donald G.. March 14, 1850. The Lorgnette; or, Studies of the Town, by an Opera Goer . New York . Stringer and Townsend . 183–84.