Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 825
JOHN L. BROWN

It is the farmer who makes it possible for men of other occupations to live. Farming was the original occupation of man and it is the only profession that can exist independently of all others. Indeed, Every occupation is dependent upon the farmer. The products of the farm have made our railroads what they are today and the great bulk of manufacturing is made necessary because of the farmers' needs. The people of the city could not live a week without the farmer's products. He holds not only the purse strings of the nation but even the very life of the people. For this reason the farmer has, in reality, the most important vocation of all. Harrison county has as fine farms and as good farmers as can be found anywhere in any state and among them is John BROWN, of Calhoun township.

John L. BROWN was born August 4, 1863, in Calhoun township, Harrison county, Iowa. He is the son of Fred and Joanna (QUINN) BROWN, who were the parents of seven children, three of whom are deceased. Fred BROWN was born in 1838 in Pennsylvania and when a young man came to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he learned the baker's trade. About 1856 he came to Harrison county, Iowa, and carried the mail by coach from the town of Magnolia to Shelby, Iowa. In a few years he purchased land in Harrison county for ten and fifteen dollars an acre. He was a hard worker and improved his land. Fred BROWN owned land in Calhoun and Magnolia townships, owning about twenty acres of natural timber. In the early days he was considered a heavy cattle feeder and was compelled to make long trips to market which was located at Sioux City and Council Bluffs, Iowa. The neighbors in Mr. BROWN's locality were not the best clothed and they were compelled to exchange clothing and get along the best they could in winter time. Fred BROWN was among the first settlers of Calhoun township to own an overcoat, which he prized very highly. He died in 1873 and his wife, who was born in 1844, in Ireland, is now living in Missouri Valley.

John L. BROWN was only ten years old when his father died and he was called upon to look after the farming interests which he did while attending the district schools of Calhoun township. He left the farm about 1889 and removed to the mountains of Colorado, where he was a teamster in the logging and lumber camps. He remained in Colorado three years and then came to Chicago, Illinois, where he became manager of an ice plant. About 1896 he returned to the old home place in Harrison county and again resumed farming. Ten years later the place was sold and he retired for a short time. After his marriage, Mr. BROWN took charge of his wife's farm and is now farming two hundred acres upon which he has made extensive improvements. He keeps a high grade of Shorthorn cattle and owns three hundred and twenty acres of land in Canada, fifty acres of which is in timber.

Mr. BROWN was married August 2, 1909, to Mrs. Irene (BEST) Boynton, who was born in 1856, in Adams county, Wisconsin. She is the daughter of Lycurgus and Angeline (SMITH) Best. Lycurgus Smith was a native of Ohio and his wife of Pennsylvania. Mrs. BROWN was first married in 1887 to Nelson Boynton, a native of Vermont, born in 1832. When twenty-one years of age he came to Harrison county, Iowa, and engaged in farming and stock raising, in which he was very successful. He died on January 24, 1908.

To Mrs. BROWN's first marriage two children were born, Mrs. Carrie I. Hardin, born in 1888, who lives just east of her mother in Calhoun township. She attended the district schools and graduated from the Woodbine Normal School. Her husband is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Ida May, the second child, who is now Mrs. Wimberley, is also a graduate of Woodbine Normal. She attended the Wesley University of Art and Music one year and is now a student at the University of Nebraska. She is a young woman of artistic temperament and possessed of a great deal of natural talent. No children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. BROWN.

Mr. BROWN is a Democrat. He is a member of the Catholic church and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He has served his township as road supervisor and as a school officer. Mr. and Mrs. BROWN are well known and highly respected citizens of Calhoun township. Mrs. BROWN is a woman of unusual ability, courteous, affable and highly respected. She takes a worthy interest in all public movements and is regarded as a leader of her sex in Calhoun township.

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