Helen Gilman Noyes Brown

Helen Gilman Brown ( Noyes; October 12, 1867 – December 12, 1942) was an American philanthropist. She had a distinguished record of service to New York City. As social worker for years at the Union Settlement of the Upper East Side, her long service record was recognized in 1919 when she was elected to membership in the National Institute of Social Sciences.

Early life and education Helen Gilman Noyes was born in New York City, October 12, 1867, or 1868,

Daniel Rogers Noyes, born in Lyme, Connecticut, November 10, 1836, through whom she descended from the Reverend James Noyes, rector at Cholderton, England, who emigrated to Boston, 1634. His son, of the same name, also her ancestor, after being graduated from Harvard in the Class of 1638, helped to found Yale University and was one of the first trustees. Brown was tenth in descent from Richard Warren, twelfth signer of the Mayflower Compact; seventh in descent from William Coddington, first governor of colonial Rhode Island; eighth in descent from Anne Hutchinson, pioneer in the movement for the intellectual freedom of women, who came to Boston with Governor John Winthrop and was commemorated by a statue in the Boston Public Library; and is a great grandniece of Edward Dorr Griffin, president of Williams College. Through her mother, Helen Adia Gilman, Brown descended from Governor Thomas Mayhew, lord of the manor of Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands; from the Reverend Chandler Robbins of Plymouth Colony; and from George Bethune, who arrived in Boston in 1710 and through whom Brown has a strain of French ancestry. William Adams Brown Jr. (1894–1957) Winthrop G. Brown (1907–1987), who served as United States Ambassador to Laos and Korea. Helen Adams Brown (1910–1928), who contracted infantile paralysis just before she was to begin college at Vassar College and died six days later.

Helen Gilman Brown died at her home, 1105 Park Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, December 12, 1942, aged 75.

Selected works The Story of a New England Schoolmaster, 1900