Background on Daniel Chauncey Brewer
The family of nurseryman Daniel Chauncey Brewer arrived in Massachusetts Bay in 1634 and settled in Springfield by 1694 when Daniel Brewer as ordained pastor the First Congregational Church. The given names Daniel and Chauncey followed them and multiplied.
The son of a merchant James Brewer and his wife Harriet (Adams), Chauncey was born in Springfield in 1829 and named for his uncle Daniel Chauncey Brewer (1772-1848) a prominent apothecary, and grandfather, Chauncey Brewer, an equally prominent physician. Coming from a wealthy and educated family, Brewer made a name for himself at an early age. Though still living with his father at 21, Brewer had already acquired the title of nurseryman in the federal census, and reported real estate valued at $5,000.
Having married in Brookline on Dec. 28, 1853, to Mary Ada (Turpin), and styling himself a horticulturist, Chauncey relocated to Boston. He died there after a three-year battle with a "psoas abscess" on May 4, 1862, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, Mass.). Near him are his wife and two sons, Daniel Chauncey Brewer (a prominent attorney, writer, and anti-immigration zealot) and David Homer Brewer, who became a florist.
