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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded.
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Historical Collections made by the
Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, Vol. XXVIII
Robert Smith Printing Co.
State Printers and Binders Lansing, Mich - 1909

         [PG 36]
         
         Brown - JACOB BROWN, well known to the residents of
       St. Johns, Clinton, and Gratiot counties in the middle
       '50s, died at Lithia Springs, Georgia, where he had
       gone a month before for the improvement of his failing
       health.
         The deceased was born in Germany 1836. When he came
       to this country he was 13 years old and could not speak
       a word of English. He remained in Detroit a short time.
       He first started out as a pack peddler. Later he peddled
       from a wagon, and eventually accumulated capital enough
       to establish a notion store in Fremont. After a two 
       years' successful career in Fremont, he removed to
       Flushing, and later came to St. Johns, which was in
       about the year 1856. Here he opened a general store
       and did a prosperous business. His business was not
       wholly confined to merchandising, but he did a large
       business in buying furs from the Indians and settlers
       as far north as Isabella county. He also operated an
       ashery where now stands Richmond Bros'. machine shop.
       Besides the product of this industry he bought and
       shipped a large amount of black salts. MR. BROWN, at
       one time, was prominent among our most successful and
       influential business men. He had the contract for fur-
       nishing the supplies for the soldiers while they were
       being recruited in this county for the war of the
       rebellion, and occupied the old Barker carriage shop
       for a barracks. He made money here very rapidly before,
       during and after the war. He finally sold out his busi-
       ness to the Heavenrich brothers, and moved to Detroit,
       which was in the year 1868, where he successfully en-
       gaged in the manufacture of cut tobacco, the jobbing
       notion trade, the manufacture of trousers, shirts and
       overalls, and later conducted a knitting factory, of
       which he was president and principal owner at the time
       of his death.
       
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