Brown Family Letters

The collection contains personal correspondence of members of the Brown family, who lived in Burton, New Brunswick and Linneus, Maine in the last half of the 19th century. According to family tradition, the land in New Brunswick had been granted to Zachariah Barnard Brown, born in England and sent to America to fight in the American Revolution. This collection centers primarily on seven Brown brothers: Josiah S., Henry P., Joshua C., David A., William C., John S., and Zachariah B. Brown. Letters of Josiah and Zachariah are best represented in the papers. The family seems to have moved frequently between northern Maine and New Brunswick, perhaps to avail themselves of changing economic opportunities in each place.

Josiah S. Brown was born March 6, 1845, at Burton, New Brunswick and came to Maine in 1854. In 1861, he enlisted in the 7th Regiment, Maine Volunteer Militia, at Houlton, Maine. He served in Virginia and as a recruiter in Maine and was mustered out in June, 1865. After the Civil War he left for the West and by 1874 had re-joined the Army and was serving as Quartermaster Sergeant at Fort Walla Walla, Washington Territory. He later left the Army and settled in Spokane County and then Lewis County in western Washington. He served in the Washington Constitutional Convention in 1887 and in the Washington House of Representatives in 1915.

Zachariah B. Brown was born February 26, 1850, in Oramuzto, New Brunswick. He worked for a while as a logger in Maine until he too moved to the West. He lived first in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California where he was a constable. In 1880 he moved to Washington Territory, settling in Pacific County, where he served for a total of 18 years as deputy sheriff, county sheriff, assessor, and county clerk. He died in May, 1941. The other five brothers remained in the East, working as loggers and farmers.