Tulare County Biographies

NEWTON O. BROWN

Transcribed by Jeannie Miyama

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


Newton O. Brown, dealer in furniture and one of the best known merchants in the 
city of Porterville, a member of the common council of that city and in other 
ways an active and influential factor in its civic and commercial life and that 
of the community at large, is a Hoosier by birth but has been for nearly twenty 
years a resident of California and is thus thoroughly familiar with interests 
and conditions here and an enthusiastic promoter of those interests.  He was 
born on a farm in Wayne county, Indiana, October 5, 1876, and is a son of W. M. 
and Rebecca (Dwire) Brown, the latter of whom is still living, now making her 
home in Decatur.  The late W. M. Brown was a well-to-do farmer and stockman.  He 
died in 1903.
 
Reared on the home farm in Indiana, Newton O. Brown acquired his education in 
the rural schools in the neighborhood of his home and supplemented this by a 
course in the commercial college at Lima, Ohio.  He then became a bookkeeper in 
a commercial establishment at VanWert, Ohio, and a year later engaged in 
department store work in Laurel, Iowa, and was for ten years in the 
merchandising business in that state, or until 1908, when he came to California 
and in Turlock, Stanislaus county, became connected with the mercantile 
operations of Osborne & Son, proprietors of a general store in that city, 
continuing this association for ten years, and then in 1918, in association with 
his brother, J. M. Brown, he became established in the furniture business in 
Porterville, a line which he since has followed.  In 1923 Mr. Brown bought his 
brother�s interest in the store and has since been carrying on the business 
independently and is doing very well, proprietor of an admirably equipped and 
adequately stocked furniture store at No. 209 Main street, where he has all the 
goods essential to the needs in that line of the fine trade area centering in 
Porterville.  Mr. Brown is a republican as has come to be regarded as one of the 
leaders of that party in this county.  He finds time amid the exactions of his 
commercial business to give a good citizen�s attention to the city�s general 
civic interests and is now (1925) representing his ward as a member of the city 
common council.  During the time of his residence in Iowa, Mr. Brown also took a 
hearty interest in the civic affairs of that state and rendered public service 
in certain local capacities.
 
On December 19, 1902, in Decatur, Mr. Brown was united in marriage to Miss 
Elizabeth Fleming, who also was born in Indiana, and they have one child:  a 
daughter, Altice Carroll Brown.  The Browns are members of the Christian church 
and Mr. Brown is a member of the local camp of the Modern Woodmen of America.
 
History of Tulare County and Kings County, California � Kathleen Edwards Small & 
J. Larry Smith, Vol. I, Chicago, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1926, Page 
359