BROWN, James

BROWN

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/11/2021 at 00:18:52

James Brown
born Jan 16, 1843, Ohio

James Brown purchased his present farm of 160 acres on section 25, Battle
Creek Township, Ida County, Iowa, October 10, 1873, and since March 29, 1874, has lived upon it. As one of the prominent pioneers of the county, it is appropriate that some personal mention be made of him in this work. Mr. Brown was born in Perry County, Ohio, January 16, 1843. His father, John Brown, was born in county Waterford, Ireland, in 1800, and at the age of fifteen came
to the United States, landing at New Orleans just after the noted battle at that place. He worked for seven years in the Carolinas and Georgia, and after that located in Perry County, Ohio, where he married Mary Clark, also a native of Ireland, she having come to this country when a little girl. When James was five years old he came with his parents to Jackson County, Iowa,
and settled on what was then the frontier. There his parents spent the rest of their lives and died, the father in 1862 at the age of sixty-two, and the mother at the age of eighty-three years. They had a family of thirteen children, nine sons and four daughters.
The subject of our sketch was reared on his father's frontier farm in Jackson County and conned his lessons in the little log schoolhouse nearby. At the age of twenty-five be was married, settled on a farm in that county,
and engaged in agricultural pursuits there until 1874, when he came to his present location and settled on wild land. He plowed the first furrow ever broken in the western part of the county, and improved the first farm in Battle Creek Township. At the time he located here wolves and deer were plenty all around, and there was not a house between his farm and Morehead's at the Grove. Now he has one of the best farms in the township. His comfortable and well-furnished house is beautifully situated on a natural building site and is surrounded with an attractive lawn, orchard and grove. His farm buildings are all first-class and kept in good order, and every thing about the premises indicates thrift and prosperity. He devotes his attention to general farming and stock-raising.
Like his father before him, Mr. Brown is Democratic in his political views. He served three years as County Supervisor, has filled all the township offices, and is at present Township Trustee. Personally he has a strong
physique and a genial and jovial nature. He is one of the most popular pioneers of Ida County.
Source: Biographical History of Crawford, Ida, and Sac Counties, Iowa, 1893, p.344