General Notes

From Pennsylvania, the family must have gone to Virginia, as the story that Alexander Monroe Brown was one of the first 100 young white men to go from Madison County, Virginia to Missouri as settlers, is found in the Missouri Historical Review, volume 21, page 492.  (Our Colonial Lines, p. 492)

Note:  death date ambiguous.  on p. 94 says "about 1857", but earlier in the same page it says that marriage of Amanda "at the home of her mother" suggest that he died before 1855.

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When Sarah Brown was 7 and her oldest brother 17, their father  joined the great majority of Portland men, and rode off to the Gold Mines of California in 1848.  This was a severe blow to the wives left behind, to take care of the children, and the little farms, but those wives had little time to brood over their plight.  Their Donation Land Claim was on the Oregon bank of the Columbia River, so Rebecca M. Brown went to work and made a big garden, with the children's help, and sold vegetables to the ships that passed by, thus making a living for herself and her children.  Alexander eventually returned from the mines, and brought home some gold, but he lived only a few years.  He died in Portland about 1857.  (Our Colonial Lines, p. 94)

With all the men who went to the gold rush, it was said there were only 7 men left in Portland.  (Our Colonial Lines, p. 99)

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  Birth Notes

Born in 1802 or 1803

  Recorded Events in His Life

• Moved: from Pennsylvania to Missouri to Oregon.

• Fact. A young widow, Rebecca, went north to visit brother in St. Louis, leaving 2 young children in the care of relatives. Met and married Alexander Monroe Brown. He promised to go after her 2 children, but he never did.

• Fact: Went to join Gold Mines in California; eventually returned with some gold, but lived only a few years, in 1848.