|
The Brown Lineage
Benjamin Brown, who is the earliest Brown we have on record in this country, migrated from Connecticut to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania about the close of the Revolutionary War. So far we have meager data about him, including his birth date and birthplace. His name is listed in the U.S. Census of 1790 as a resident of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, his family consisting of "one free white male under 17", and "five females of all ages", probably his wife and four daughters. He may have been a Revolutionary soldier. The Connecticut "Revolution Rolls" listed the name of Benjamin brown three times as a soldier from Windham County and once as a soldier from New London County. This is a line I am presently actively pursuing*, as I am most curious about our first Brown in this line. In Volume III, p. 479, Deeds of Record, Luzerne "County, P.A., there is recorded the deed by John Staples to Benjamin Brown of a tract of 250 acres of land in Providence Township of that county. The deed was recorded September 8, 1795, and was witnessed by Benjamin Perry and Matthias Hollenback. There is no will nor other deed of record. Dates are estimated for Benjamin, however we know his first child was born in 1770, so Benjamin was probably born about 1740, give or take a few years. His wife's name was Hannah, but we have no other information for her at this time. Their first child was Abial, born in Connecticut February 28, 1770. A memorandum by Roxanna Brown Davis states that he was by trade a shoemaker, serving an apprenticeship of seven years. He moved from Connecticut, date unknown, to the Wyoming Valley, P.A., where he married Sarah Hutchings, daughter of Jonathan Hutchings, of Dashville, Ulster County, N.Y. Benjamin and Hannah had four children: Abial Brown Click here for Abial's Pioneering Family Samuel William Thankful*, who married Jerah Peabody. *Thankful Brown Warren informed her nephew, William S. Davis, that her grandfather, Captain Abial Brown moved from Luzerne County to Virgil Township, Cortland County, N.Y., did so to settle on a Revolutionary land grant. If so, it may have been a claim inherited from his father Benjamin, as Captain Abial Brown was too young to have served in the Revolution. The foregoing are excerpts from Notes on Ancestry of Roxanna (Brown) Davis, a limited edition of 75 published in 1929.
|
