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England, whence came so many of the thrifty and leading citizens of this country, is the native land of our subject, his birth occurring in 1831 in Yorkshire. When but a lad of seven years he was left an orphan, and from that time until the present he has met the battles of life with pluck, perseverance and a sagacity that have enabled him to surmount all obstacles and win success and the smiles of dame fortune even in her most elusive moods. For a brief period after being orphaned he lived with Mr. Cartill and when fourteen years of age encountered the battle alone. 1857 was the year he came to the United State and engaged in labor at St. Joe, Michigan, and in March, 1858, he came via New York and via the isthmus to California, mining there at Indian creek in Siskiyou county for a time and then repairing to the Fraser river district, where he also followed mining for a time, and then went down the river and Puget sound in a small boat, stopping near Stillacoom, where he worked for a minister named Morrison until the following year, when he returned to Michigan for his wife and crossed the plains in 1860 by ox teams to Umatilla county. For one year he freighted and his wife operated a boarding house at the Umatilla reservation, and then in company with nine others he came to what is now Union county, settling at what was then known as Old Fort, about six miles north of Lagrande. There he took a claim, but at the time of the gold excitement in Auburn he moved to the site of Lagrande and erected a house for himself, the first individual house built in the county. There he ran a hotel for some time and then turned his attention to buying and selling hay and farming and was also prominently engaged in stock raising, handling cattle and horses. At the present time he has a fine farm of eight hundred and forty acres, which is rented. In political matters Mr. Brown is prominent, and in 1898 he was elected on the Republican ticket to the office of county assessor, and later was re-elected by a larger majority, being the efficient and trusted incumbent of that office at the present time.

In 1852, in England, Mr. Brown married Miss Francis Kirk, a native of Yorkshire, England, and to them have been born the following children: Esther, Ada, Alma, Fanny and Carrie