After his father's death in 1841, John Carter Brown had the freedom to withdraw from Brown & Ives affairs and to develop his passion for books. In fact, he was continuing a family tradition as his ancestors had been buying books since 1749, helping to found the Providence Library in 1758 and 83 years later, the Providence Athenaeum. In 1846, he bought his elder brother's collection of books on the Americas and began purchasing books in Europe, using Henry Stevens as his agent. The same year, he bought the collection of Frenchman Henri Ternaux. When his collection became too large, he expanded his house, the Nightingale-Brown House, by adding a modern fireproof library; he also hired a full-time librarian, John Russell Bartlett, to manage the collection and produce its first catalogue.