A MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF IOWA
SANFORD S. BROWN
SANFORD S. BROWN, who is numbered among the very earliest pioneers of Warren county, has seen Milo, his adopted home, develop from a bleak and wind-swept prairie to its present populous status. Before the section was settled he has seen it swept by the fast flying tongues of fire which swept it clean, and the following year has seen it again blossom out in grass and wild flowers.
Mr. Brown was born in Highland county, Ohio, January 9, 1824, a son of Booker and Cassander (Clearwaters) Brown. They were the parents of ten children, five of whom are now living, namely: Nancy, wife of John Springer, of Green county, Wisconsin; Sarah, wife of William Ostrander, also of that county; Frances, wife of Thomas Morton; Rachel Jane, wife of William Kline, of Brockton, Taylor county, Iowa; and Sanford S., the subject of this sketch.
Booker Brown was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, but in early life he moved to Highland county, Ohio, and when Sanford S. was a babe of eighteen months he located in Vermilion county, Indiana. There he raised his family, and Sanford attended the log-cabin schools of his district. He recalls as his first teacher a Mr. Leek. In 1842 Booker Brown founded a home in Territorial Wisconsin, in Green county, that being before Wisconsin knew aught of railroads or telegraph lines. There he spent his declining years, having been called to the spirit world in 1848, the year that Wisconsin was admitted to the sisterhood of States.
December 17, 1863. Sanford S. Brown, the subject of this sketch, responded to the call sent out by Abraham Lincoln, and enlisted in Company K, Sixteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. He followed the fortunes of his regiment, engaging in many skirmishes, and was under the shells of Forrest at Columbus, Kentucky. Mr. Brown was afflicted with rheumatism, which greatly incapacitated him for service, and which constantly grew worse in the Black river country in Mississippi. He spent forty-eight hours in the hospital at Mound City, was then transferred to Jefferson Bar racks for two months, and next spent four and a half months in the hospital at the capital city of his adopted State. He was on crutches for about seven and a half months, and often suffered excruciating pain. Mr. Brown was dis charged from Madison hospital just one year and two days after his enlistment. He re turned with his family to Iowa in 1865, moving into the house, in Otter township, from which he emerged at the time of his migratory tour into Wisconsin. In 1880 he came to Milo, spending the first year on a farm near the city after which he disposed of his place and moved into the town. Mr. Brown was a member of the first Council when F. Goode was Mayor of the city. He has always taken an active part in any enterprise for the up building of Milo, and his life has been one surely worthy of emulation. In his social relations, he is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic Post, No. 275, of Milo. Politically he was first a Whig and afterward a Republican, and twice supported our martyred president, Abraham Lincoln.
February 28, 1850, Mr. Brown was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth, daughter of Levi and Sarah (Peck) Morgan. Mrs. Brown 1 was born in Jefferson county, Tennessee, but accompanied her parents to Iowa in 1837, locating near Mt. Pleasant, in Henry county, where the Indians were more numerous than the whites. She received her education in the most primitive of log school-houses, with roughly hewn benches, and sheets of greased paper to allow daylight to be seen. She met Mr. Brown in Keokuk county, Iowa, in 1845. Our subject and wife have had six children, Lydia Ann, wife of B. A. Manley, the popular manager of Stewarts’ lumber, grain and hardware interests of Milo; Sarah Cassander, wife of Melville Stitt, who has also been associated with the Stewarts’ interests; and John W., born November 26, 1858, in Otter township, Warren county, is a painter of this city. He has studied theology, and has been a minister in the Methodist Church. The deceased children are: Alice Jane and Mary Frances and Rachel Ellen (twins). Mary Frances, wife of William P. Johnson, died aged twenty-one years, leaving two children,—Alice Bell and Elizabeth Ann. Mr. Brown is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, while Mrs. Brown was raised in the Quaker faith.
From A Memorial and Biographical Record of Iowa, Volume I, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1896, pp. 520-521. Transcribed July, 2015 by Conni McDaniel Hall.