Fayette D Brown

1823 - 1910  (86 years)

• Name	Fayette D Brown
  Birth	17 Dec 1823	, , Ohio, USA
  Gender	Male
  Death	20 Jan 1910	Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, USA
  Person ID	I18375	Master
  Last Modified	14 Jul 2012

  
  

  Father	Ephraim Brown,   b. 27 Oct 1775, Westmoreland, Cheshire, New Hampshire, USA d. 17 Apr 1845, North Bloomfield, Trumbull, Ohio, USA (Age 69 years)
  Mother	Mary Buckingham Huntington,   b. 29 Aug 1787, Windham, Windham, Connecticut, USA d. 26 Jan 1862, North Bloomfield, Trumbull, Ohio, USA (Age 74 years)
  Marriage	9 Nov 1806	Westmoreland, Cheshire, New Hampshire, USA   [1]
  Family ID	F4654	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 17 Dec 1823 - , , Ohio, USA Death - 20 Jan 1910 - Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio, USA  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  Ephraim and Fayette Brown of North Bloomfield, Ohio Elroy McKendree Avery, A History of Cleveland and Its Environs: The Heart of New Connecticut, Volume II, Biography (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1918). [413-414] Ephraim Brown. The life of Ephraim Brown is of interest to Cleveland people for several reasons. He was never a resident of the city, though he was one of the pioneer founders and owners of the great Ohio Western Reserve, and during the first half century of its development he was not only a big factor in its material life and business affairs, but exemplified in a remarkable degree that idealism, love of liberty, and harmony between the conscience and will which have been among the finest products and contributions of Northern Ohio to the American nation. His sketch should also be read as a means of better interpreting the forces and character possessed and exemplified by his son, the late Fayette Brown, one of Cleveland's most distinguished citizens. Ephraim Brown was born at Westmoreland, New Hampshire, October 27, 1775. He was the oldest of the ten children of Ephraim and Hannah (Howe) Brown. In many ways the family was typical of New England middle class people of the eighteenth century. His father had a small farm and by occasional outside labor at some mechanical pursuits was able to afford comfortable support to his family. He was a man of great sturdiness of character, but one virtue he pushed to excess and by going security for a friend lost all his property. After that he never regained his economic position. Ephraim Brown's mother was a woman of deep religious feeling, and she imparted it to her son. When the financial calamity came Ephraim Brown, as the oldest son, became the chief support of the family. While necessity forced upon him responsibilities beyond his years, it served to develop in him an indomitable perseverance and a self reliance which were ever afterwards among his chief characteristics. But hard labor did not prevent him from seeking and obtaining access to much of the best culture of his day. He read good books, though books and libraries were not widely distributed when he was a young man, and he constantly sought the society of people whose worth rested upon character rather than artificial standards. His developing character is illustrated by many of his early letters which have been preserved. As was the custom of the time such correspondence was largely concerned with moral, religious and political discussions. The letters are important because they show that Ephraim Brown had a certain fearlessness and sincerity of thought and a tendency to reject the conventional prejudices unless they were ratified by his own thinking. He also showed a readiness to be convinced of error in the face of superior argument. Very early in life he conceived a bitter hatred of the system of slavery, and that was one of the actuating principles of his subsequent career. In a letter he wrote in 1807 to a Southern relative who had tried to persuade young Brown to come South and improve the superior facilities there for making money, Mr. Brown questioned the method by which wealth might be acquired so rapidly by "commerce in human flesh" and added, "I have been taught from my cradle to despise slavery, and will never forget to teach my children if any I should have the same lesson.'' Other sentiments in that letter thirty years later were expounded and used in the public utterances of William Lloyd Garrison and other distinguished abolitionists. Ephraim Brown possessed his mother's earnestness of inward thought and feeling, and whatever religious disposition he had was made a deep part of him rather than a conventional robe of thought and emotion. He was quick and ready at all times to denounce evil vigorously, and some of his more conservative friends felt that he was too radical on this score. Due largely to his love of freedom and his habits of independent thought, he never became closely associated with societies of any kind. For a number of years he applied himself industriously to the task of earning a living for himself and those dependent upon him, and in 1803 he engaged in merchandising in Connecticut with Thomas K. Green of Putney, Vermont. Mr. Green had charge of the business at Putney, while young Brown managed the branch store at Westmoreland. He remained a merchant there until he moved out to Ohio in 1815. While in Connecticut he represented his town in the Legislature several times. Soon after entering upon his individual business career, on November 9,1806, he married Miss Mary Huntington. She was the oldest daughter of Gurdon and Temperance (Williams) Huntington, and was born at Windham, Connecticut, August 29, 1787. While still a child her father and mother moved to Walpole, New Hampshire. Mrs. Ephraim Brown came from a talented family, and she herself possessed many qualities of both heart and intellect. Before her marriage she taught school. Her ancestors had come from England in 1639 and settled in Connecticut, and one of the family was Governor Samuel Huntington of Ohio. In 1814 Ephraim Brown formed a partnership with his uncle, Thomas Howe. From Peter C. Brooks of Boston they bought township 7, range 4, in the Western Reserve of Ohio. This township has since taken the name of Bloomfield. In 1815 Mr. Brown brought his family out to the new possession. The journey required six weeks, and they arrived at the new home on July 16th. Some preparations had already been made for their comfort and support, but then and for years afterward they were face to face with the hardships and privations of pioneering on the edge of the western wilderness. Mr. Brown later assumed the burden of the debt consequent upon the partnership, and in a few years had fully discharged it. In 1819 the Ashtabula & Trumbull Turnpike Company was formed and chartered under the laws of Ohio. Ephraim Brown took an active part in pushing this enterprise, in spite of the tremendous obstacles in its way, and as much as any other man credit was due him for its successful completion. For many years he exercised a ceaseless care for the interests of the company and the preservation of the road. Through his influence a postoffice was established at Bloomfield. Within seven years after the first settlement in Bloomfield daily four-horse mail coaches passed through the place on the way to the lake or south to the Ohio River. In consequence land advanced in value, and the better class of settlers acquired many of the comforts and improvements to which they had been accustomed in the older states. After coming to Ohio Ephraim Brown served several terms in the General Assembly. In his younger days he was a Jeffersonian republican, and from first to last was an avowed abolitionist. He believed implicitly in the complete separation of the church and state, and he therefore strenuously opposed the efforts of a prominent religious sect in 1822 to dominate politics. He was long known as Colonel Brown. He had served as captain of a company of militia in New Hampshire, and afterwards was made governor's aide with the rank of colonel. Ephraim Brown in his social relations was distinguished for his kindness, benevolence and hospitality, and in his business transactions by prudence, promptness and integrity. He was the type of character such as any state or community might prize and might hold up as an example to coming generations. Ephraim Brown died April 17, 1845, in the seventieth year of his life. His wife survived until January 26,1862. Their nine children, all now deceased, were: Alexander; George W.; Mary, who became the wife of Col. Joseph K. Wing; Charles; Elizabeth; James Monroe; Marvin Huntington ; Fayette; Anne Frances. [414-416] Fayette Brown. One of the vital elements entering into the making of Cleveland as a city was the establishment many years ago of the iron industry at this point where land and water meet and combine to make Cleveland a great transportation and industrial center. It is important to remember that the iron industry would not have been created without the energies, the foresight and the patient wisdom of men. Of the men chiefly responsible for this factor of Cleveland's growth perhaps the greatest was Fayette Brown. Not that his life did not mean more than its results in the upbuilding of Cleveland's iron interests. He was a great business man from whatever point of view considered, and he was not less great as a citizen, whose judgment was always true, whose public spirit was unlimited, and who, when all things are considered, left as his best monument the City of Cleveland itself, which in the final analysis is only an expression of the energies and spirit of a notable group of citizens, among whom Fayette Brown was by no means the least. He was born in Trumbull County, Ohio, December 17, 1823, and at the end of a long and useful life died at his home in Cleveland January 20, 1910. He was the eighth in a family of nine children. His parents were Ephraim and Mary (Huntington) Brown. Ephraim Brown was also a conspicuous character in his generation, and his name is the subject of a biography found on other pages of this publication. Fayette Brown during his early youth had every incentive to develop his natural talents and abilities, and his father, realizing the value of an education, gave his children all the opportunities he could afford. Fayette Brown therefore attended the schools of Jefferson and Gambier, Ohio, but at the age of eighteen began an apprenticeship at business life as clerk in the wholesale dry goods establishment of his eldest brother at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was with that establishment as an employe until 1845, when the senior partner having retired he was admitted to the firm and for six years was one of its active managers. Fayette Brown became a resident of Cleveland in 1851. Some months previously he had formed a partnership with the Hon. George Mygatt in the banking business. The firm of Mygatt & Brown, Bankers, is one best remembered in the history of banking in Cleveland. Mr. Mygatt retired in 1857 and Mr. Brown continued as a banker under his individual name until the outbreak of the Civil war. He closed his banking house and accepted an appointment from the president as a paymaster in the United States Army. His personal integrity and his experience as a banker gave him splendid qualifications for the heavy responsibilities of that work, but a year's illness and the demands of his private affairs compelled him to resign. It was on his return to Cleveland that Mr. Brown became actively identified with the iron industry. As general agent and manager for the Jackson Iron Company he soon became known as one of the most capable iron masters of his day. He remained with the Jackson Iron Company until December, 1887. "While he possessed an exceptional general knowledge of business, Mr. Brown was not technically familiar with the iron industry when he took up his duties with the Jackson Iron Company. It was in keeping with his nature that he should embark enthusiastically upon this enterprise and should familiarize himself with every detail, practical and technical, connected with his work. His associates always envied his perseverance and his indomitable energy and resolution, and it was the impregnable resources of his personal character as much as anything else that accounted for the wonderful success of the Jackson Iron Company and which eventually fortified the iron industry in Cleveland beyond all danger of outside competition. While the operation of the business was exceedingly profitable to all concerned Mr. Brown from the first realized his responsibility to the city as well as to his stockholders, and the prosperity of the company was also the prosperity of the community. During the last half century the Middle West has developed no greater iron master than Fayette Brown. Naturally he became identified with various kindred enterprises and was associated as a director or otherwise with some of Cleveland's best known business organizations. He was president of the Union Steel Screw Company, was chairman of the Stewart Iron Company, Limited, was president of the Brown Hoisting Machinery Company, of the National Chemical Company, the G. C. Kuhlman Car Company, and was a member of the firm H. H. Brown & Company, one of the large iron ore firms of the country. This company represented the Lake Superior Iron Company and the Champion Iron Company, handling the products of two of the largest iron mines in the Lake Superior region. Mr. Brown was a member of the Union Club, the Golf and Country Clubs of Cleveland, the Castalia Club, the Winous Point Shooting Club, the Point Moullie Shooting Club, the West Huron Shooting Club, the Huron Mountain Shooting and Fishing Club, and the Munising Trout Club. To describe all the influences and activities of this notable Cleveland citizen would exceed the limits of this sketch, but something more should be said in a general way to give sharper definition to a sketch which will enable a later generation to picture this veteran iron master and citizen. His was a life from which nothing but good can follow, and a character that may well serve as an example for all that is highest and best in manhood and citizenship. While he attained a high degree of prosperity it was never gained at the cost of other men's success. He was also interested in everything for the good of Cleveland and the welfare of its people; was an advocate and practicer of healthy outdoor life, a keen sportsman, taking his vacations and recreation in shooting and fishing. He was an expert in all things pertaining to sportsmanship. Up to the age of eighty-five he spent many days in the duck marches belonging to the clubs of which he was a member and with as keen an interest and unerring an aim as he had always been noted for. He exemplified to a high degree that classic ideal of mens sana in corpore sano. When he worked it was with indefatigable energy. When he engaged in recreation he did so with as keen an appetite and vigor as when following his business affairs. He kept himself healthy in mind and body and spirit, and though he lived to be upwards of 87 years of age he never really retired and he came to the end of his life with scarcely a faculty diminished until the day of his final illness. At his funeral gathered notable men who had played important parts in making Cleveland the metropolis of Ohio, men who had been fellow workers with Fayette Brown, fellow builders of Cleveland, and they did honor to his memory as one of the greatest of them all and who had signally enriched and expanded his beloved city by his many enterprises. On July 15, 1847, Fayette Brown married Miss Cornelia C. Curtiss of Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Fayette Brown was born December 4, 1825, and died April 5, 1899. They were the parents of three sons and two daughters: Harvey Huntington Brown, whose part in Cleveland affairs is described elsewhere; Florence C. Brown, of Cleveland; Alexander E. Brown, a great inventor and manufacturer, who died at Cleveland April 26, 1911; William Fayette Brown, who died in 1891; and Mary L. Brown, of Cleveland.

  
  

• Sources

  [S655] Ancestry.com, Ohio Obituary Index, 1830s-2009, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.). Birth date: 27 Oct 1775 Birth place: Death date: 7 Mar 1845 Death place: Marriage date: 9 Nov 1806 Marriage place: