Year: 1859

The following account Of this family is
furnished US by resident of this county,
and will be found interesting, especially as it
shows the peculiar mental traits which be-
long to them. He speaks of his own knowi'
edge, but thinks he can give particulars by
the next mail, from aequaintanees in the
East which will be of equal interest;


Inasmuch as there has been so much said
about the history of old Brown, of Harper's
Ferry notoriety, l will give you the truth Of
his history, at least what know of it The
principal part of his history 1 have from
Frederick and Owen, two of his sons, with
whom have been well acquainted The
old man located in Ohio, on the Western Re
serve, twenty-five or thirty years since and
at one time was possessed of goodly amount
of property. He was educated for the min
istry, and was of the Presbyterian faith; he
was always notorious as religious fanatic
Some time in 1856 he, through some bad in
vestments, became a bankrupt, and about
this time he lost his first wife, by whom he
had one daughter named Olivia and four sons
named respectively John, Jason, Owen, and
Frederick The last named was killed in
Kansas. Brown shortly after the death of
his first wife, married second by whom he
had three more sons Watson, Salmon and
Oliver, besides two young children whom L
do not now recolect much about. Some
time near the year 1874 Brown and his fam-
lily moved into Summit county, o., and went
into the sheep business. The old man be-
came the agent of some of the principal
wool dealers in that part of the State and
spent a good deal of his time in the East
The older one of the Brown boys, John, was
a Young man of considerable ability and
possessed of good deal of force of charac-
ter BY teaching school and close fnancier-
ing he worked his way through the Austen
burgh Institute and graduated with q good
deal of credit TO himself The last heard
of him he was connected with Fowler d
Wells book establishment in the city OF New
York This was some time in 1856. The
next older brother, Jason, married some time
in 1913, young lady of the name of Ellen
Sherbonely. None of the rest of the family
were ever married that ever heard Of l
have not seen or heard of any of the family
since 1850 or 1851 until lately.


The family was very peculiar one. All
of them were well educated, at the same
time some of them had never had even the
benefits of common school Frederick, in
lS4s, was taken with insanity, and became
perfectly mad-crazy. l have seen him in
such state for weeks that there had to be a
constant guard kept over him. Owen was
always called insane by every one in the
neighborhood. The three younger boys l
knew less about When the elder Brown
was at home he always attended to morning
and evening prayer in his family They
were notorious for two distinguishing traits
of character, for their abolition and religious
procivities. No one could talk with them
an hour without one or the other of these
subjects being brought into the conversation
The boys have often told me that their insan
ity was hereditary in their family, and from
my kno wledge of them, have no reason to
doubt the assertion. They were always char.
acterized for some eccentricity or talked
about as "the crazy Browns"