Forget Me Not: Moses Brown, Michigan Pioneer

This is an amazing newspaper article, full of family information.

Moses Brown, Jr.

15 Jan 1820 MS - 22 Apr 1912 Iowa

Moses Brown, Jr. was the son of Moses Brown, my 4th great grandfather & his second wife,  Nancy Perkins. His half brother, Edward S. Brown was my 3rd great grandfather.

Moses Brown was a Cass County Pioneer

Passed away in Iowa a Few Months Ago

Moses Brown was a Cass county pioneer known to many of the older residents of this community, where the family settled in 1845, for which reason the following account of his death, together with a brief history of the family will probably be of interest here:

Moses Brown was born Jan 15^th 1820 in Marion Co., Miss. A little more than fourscore and twelve years were rounded out when, after an illness of several weeks, he laid down the burdens of life and passed to the great beyond at 6:30 a.m. Monday, April 22, 1912, at his home in Mitchellville, Ia. He was married, May 12^th, 1841, in Logan Co., Ohio, to Miss Elizabeth Monroe, a native of Culpepper Co., Va. They were the parents of thirteen children, all of whom grew to mature years except two. He is survived by his wife 88 years old and seven children, Mrs. Mary Mulligan of Phillips, S. D., Mrs. William Huff of Des Moines, Mrs. Arthur Thorp of Los Angeles, Calif., A> R. Brown of Cherokee, Ia., M. M. Brown, A. L. Brown and C. B. Brown of Mitchellville. There are sixteen grandchildren, twenty-three great grandchildren and one great great grandchild. Funeral services were from the Christian church, where he and his wife had been active members since tis organization, at 2 p.m. April 24^th. Rev. J. D. Arnold delivering as address that well fitted the occasion [sic] being fully aware that it was an unusual event to pronounce an eulogy over the body of a man who witnessed the wonderful changes that had taken place within a period of almost one hundred years. Business houses were closed during the services. Appropriate music was furnished and floral offerings were numerous and beautiful.

He was the last living member of his family, his brother Aaron having died eight years ago aged 82 years. Uncle Moses Brown had an interesting history and could relate many incidents of his early life and events which he had learned from his parents. His grandfather, Edward Brown, was born in Newburn, N. C. His family were Scotch Quakers, opposed to war but in favor of independence, and he with the resident Quakers of the county attended the Mechlinburg convention where the first constitution of the United States was framed, a year before the Jefferson, and was one of the eight signers; was a soldier in the army until the close of the war.

His father [Moses Brown] was born in NC Feb 2, 1777. In 1804 he emigrated to Georgia and later to Mississippi and some years later to Louisiana, Although born and raised in the southland where slavery was an institution, the family were abolitionists in principle, and in 1825 they moved to Logan Co., O., where his two oldest brothers had settled in 1806, which formed the beginnings of a Quaker society among the Wyandotte Indians near Zanesfield. On reaching Cincinnati he freed his slaves. He was a soldier in the war of 1812 and participated in the battle of New Orleans, under Gen Jackson. On reaching Ohio a farm was purchased of Gen. Simon Kenton, which the family occupied until they settled in Cass Co., Mich., in 1845. His mother, Nancy Chandler Perkins, was born Feb 1^st 1787, in South Carolina, was of German descent, and a near relative of Gen. Wade Hampton and lived in his father’s family when a girl. Her father emigrated to Georgia and later on to Mississippi where she was married in 1811 to Moses Brown.

The first school Moses attended was taught by Polly Kenton Murry, daughter of Gen. Kenton in her farm home. At age 17, he was apprenticed to a blacksmith at his own request, which occupation he followed through his life.

In 1844 he settle down in Brownsville, Cass Co., Mich., and lived in that vicinity until 1865, when he removed his family to Iowa. Mr. Mitchell, the founder of Mitchellville, told him if he would build a shop in the new village he would give him a lot. He accepted the offer. He bought more land, erected a home for his family and paid for it all in blacksmithing. Years later the Union school building occupied the block just across from his shop, which was a rendezvous [sic] for the school children until the last bell would call them to their work through all the following years.

He was ‘uncle’ and ‘grandpa’ to old and young, and children were never in his way. Sunday morning they would call for the pleasure of being lead or leading him to Sunday school.

He had a number of heirlooms, which he prized very highly. One was his mother’s family Bible given him by her mother while he still lived in Michigan and which she covered with the skin of a deer he had killed and dressed. He also owned a flintlock gun, which his father carried in the battle of New Orleans. In later years the stock became worn and broken and a new one was made from a walnut log.

He enjoyed hunting and fishing but never allowed the sport to interfere with his business except to make a trip farther north each year as the deer became scarce in Cass county.

Wm Ingling, a neighbor, and he once made a boat, and late in the afternoon loaded it on a wagon and went to Diamond Lake and fished the greater part of the night and came home for an early breakfast with 600 fish, which they divided among the neighbors.

Source: Moses Brown Cass County Pioneer. (n.d.). Vigilant, Cassopolis, Michigan. Retrieved February 15, 2017 from newspapers.com.