BREWER, LEIGH RICHMOND: Protestant Episcopal bishop of Montana; b. at Berkshire, Vt., Jan. 20, 1839. He was educated at Hobart College (B.A., 1863) and the General Theological Seminary (1866), and was ordered deacon in 1866 and ordained priest in the following year. He was successively rector of Grace Church, Carthage, N. Y. (1866-72), and Trinity Church, Watertown, N. Y. (1872-80), and in 1880 was consecrated missionary bishop of Montana.

BREWSTER, CHAUNCEY BUNCE: Protestant Episcopal bishop of Connecticut; b. at Windham, Conn., Sept. 5, 1848. He was educated at Yale College (B.A., 1868) and Berkeley Divinity School, Middletown, Conn. (1872). He was a tutor at Yale in 1870-71, was ordered deacon in 1872, and was advanced to the priesthood in the following year. He was curate of St. Andrew's, Meriden, Conn., in 1872, and was then rector in succession of Christ Church, Rye, N. Y. (1873-81), Christ Church, Detroit, Mich. (1881-85), Grace Church, Baltimore (1885-88), and Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights (1888-97). In 1897 he was consecrated bishop-coadjutor of Connecticut, and became bishop in 1899. His theological position is that of a High-churchman with liberal sympathies. He has written The Key of Life (New York, 1894); Aspects of Revelation (1901; the Baldwin lectures for 1900); and The Catholic Ideal of the Church (1904).

BREWSTER, WILLIAM: Leader of the "Pilgrim Fathers"; b. of good family probably at Scrooby (37 m. s. of York), Nottinghamshire, England, 1560; d. at Plymouth, Mass., Apr. 10, 1644. He matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, but apparently did not graduate. From 1584 till 1587 he was in the service of William Davison, ambassador to the Low Countries and afterward secretary of state. About 1587 he retired to Scrooby, where he lived in the manor-house and was keeper of the post, a position of considerable importance at that time. He was a prominent member of a separatist congregation of which Richard Clifton was pastor, holding its meetings regularly at Brewster's house. Because of persecution in England they made an unsuccessful attempt to flee to Holland in 1607, and in 1608 escaped to Amsterdam with John Robinson as "teacher" and Brewster as "elder." In 1609 they settled at Leyden, where Brewster, having exhausted his means, gave lessons in English and also set up a printing-press. He favored the emigration to America, was influential in securing a grant of land in 1619, and sailed with the first company in the Mayflower, Sept., 1620. He continued as elder of the congregation at Plymouth, and preached regularly until the first ordained minister, Ralph Smith, came in 1629, but as he was not ordained, he never administered the sacraments. See CONGREGATIONALISTS, I, 1, §§ 5-7; 4, § 1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Memoir, written by his colleague, William Bradford, the governor and historian of the Plymouth colony (b. 1590; d. 1657), in Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, Boston, 1841, and in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, series 5, vol. iii; A. Steele, Chief of the Pilgrims. Life and Time of W. Brewster, Philadelphia, 1857; J. Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, 4 vols., Boston, 1860-62; W. Walker, History of Congregational Churches, pp. 56, 59, 61-74, 77, 227, New York, 1894; DNB, vi, 304-305.