Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 

E. M. BROWN, 

 a prosperous and enterprising farmer and fruit-grower, living three miles northwest of Garvanza in 
the beautiful Eagle Rock Valley, is a Canadian by birth, and of German origin. He was born near 
Toronto in 1835, and is a son of Sylvanus and Permelia (Kees) Brown. They were natives of Vermont 
and New York respectively, and were Quakers. This lady was his second wife, and by her he had six 
children, the subject of this sketch being the oldest. When he reached his
majority he left his home in Canada and came to the United States, locating first at Fond du Lac, 
Wisconsin, where he resided for three years and a half. He was there married, in 1858, to Mips Eltana 
Merwin, of Erie County, Pennsylvania, and daughter of Samuel W. and Elizabeth (Bail) Merwin, both 
natives of the Keystone State, and of German origin. Soon after his marriage Mr. Brown moved to Nebraska. 
He drove an ox team all the way, and located near where Lincoln now stands. There was not a house there 
then, and he often went thirty miles to mill and the postoffice, leaving his wife all alone for a whole week, 
four miles and a half from the nearest neighbor, while he took the wheat to mill, which he had tramped out 
with oxen. He was truly one of the pioneers of Nebraska. He saw Lincoln grow from nothing to a flourishing 
city of 1,600 inhabitants. Here he continued for twenty years, or till 1880, when he set his face toward the 
Golden State. His first work on the coast was as a farmer in Santa Barbara County, where he remained 
three years. Then he moved to Los Angeles County and bought the fifty acres on which he now lives in the 
beautiful Eagle Rock Valley. This farm he has subjected to a very high state of cultivation, and is raising 
great quantities of oranges, grapes, barley, alfalfa, melons, cucumbers and tomatoes. To show what may 
be done in the way of producing these vegetables and berries, it is only necessary to mention the fact that 
last year he furnished 103 tons of tomatoes to the cannery. These vines grow and produce fruit in this valley 
from January to December. The names of Mr. Brown's children are as follows: Effie, wife of Orin Seeley, of 
Santa Barbara County; Milton S., who married Miss Ollie Knowles; Willis E. and Earnest R. The mother of 
these children departed this life in Florida, February 7, 1876, where she had gone for her health. In 1884 Mr. 
Brown married Mrs. Mariah Smith, of Portland, Oregon. She had three children: Ella, Frank and Charles. 
Politically Mr. Brown affiliates with the Republican party; and religiously, he believes in the doctrines as taught 
by the Spiritualist Church.

 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 
1889   Page 714

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler