ALEXANDER BROWN

Sacramento County

Biographies

ALEXANDER BROWN

ALEXANDER BROWN.--Sacramento County may well be proud of its captains of industry and finance, prominent among whom is Alexander Brown, who was born at Portsmouth, N. H., and has more than made good, with typical Yankee enterprise, in the Golden State of his adoption. He first saw light on March 10, 1849, when thousands were seeking to find the Land of Gold. His parents were John and Agnes (Robinson) Brown, both natives of Renark, Scotland. The father came to the United States when a young man, and engaged in weaving, having a factory at Portsmouth; and there he died, in 1858, at the early age of thirty-three. The brave widowed mother brought the family to San Francisco, but returned again to the East a few years later, and settled at Lawrence, Mass. The lure of California, however, brought her out to San Francisco again in 1866, and since then the Browns have remained in California. There were six children in the family, but only two are living. Agnes, John, and Marian are deceased; Alexander is the subject of our story; Christina is Mrs. Drury of Oakland, and is a widow; William is also deceased.

Alexander Brown went to school until he was twelve years old, and then, when old and strong enough to work, he struck out for himself. He was reared at Lawrence until he was fifteen, getting his "keep" for work in a grocery store, there laying, in his apprenticeship, the foundation for the later experience which enabled him to become an important man of affairs. In San Francisco, he found odd jobs until 1879, when his mother, a remarkable woman, moved to Walnut Grove. There she conducted a hotel, assisted by Alexander. She died at the age of eighty-three, mourned by the many who had come to love her and respect her worth. In 1881, Mr. Brown embarked in the general merchandise business for himself, at Walnut Grove, and this proved also a stepping stone for him to advance to other and larger things. In 1921, Nelson Barry took over the business he had until then conducted so well.

Mr. Brown soon tried his hand at farming, buying 6,000 acres in Stony Creek Valley. The property was then a stock farm, with some land very valuable for general farming; and he still owns this acreage and has brought it to a high state of improvement. From 700 to 1,000 head of cattle are kept on this ranch, which is irrigated in part from the waters of Stony Creek. From time to time, he has also acquired various other parcels of land in the Sacramento River delta, and he has 100 acres of land in the immediate vicinity of Walnut Grove. He owns 1,200 acres on Tyler Island, and 240 acres on Grand Island, back of Ryde. He also leased 1,200 acres of land on Tyler Island, devoted to the raising of asparagus; of his 1,600 acres of delta land, only about fifty acres are given to fruit, and the balance is devoted to asparagus and truck-garden stuff. He does not irrigate his delta land to any great extent, but relies more on intensified cultivation.

Mr. Brown built and owns his own packing-house for the packing of asparagus, and is the largest individual grower of asparagus in California, if not in the United States. He either owns or leases 2,700 acres devoted to the growing of this choice edible, and employs in the packing-shed from forty to 150 men, according to the season's run. He is also the largest individual shipper of asparagus in California, and sends to the New York market, through E. A. Myers & Company, commission merchants of New York City, from ten to fifty-two cars of green asparagus each season. He is also one of the earliest shippers to the Eastern market. He owns and operates two tow-boats on the Sacramento River, and thus hauls asparagus and fruit to market. And he uses many trucks in conducting his asparagus trade.

Mr. Brown is the founder of the Bank of Alexander Brown, of Walnut Grove, of which he has been president since its beginning, in 1914, when he erected the bank building; and in 1915 he purchased the business block in which he conducted his general merchandise business. The new Walnut Grove Hotel was one year in building, and in 1918 it was finished at the cost of $120,000, for building and furniture. It is built of the best red brick obtainable, is a handsome structure, and is also the most modern and the largest hotel on the river. Mr. Brown built, and leases out, fourteen cottages directly back of the bank building. He built and owns the two water-systems of Walnut Grove, one supplying Jap-town and China-town, and the other supplying the American settlement. He also has fire-fighting apparatus for the town. He is a director of the California National Bank of Commerce, and is both able and disposed to further, in matters of important financial venture, the best interests of Walnut Grove, both locally and as relating to her commerce with the outside world. A Republican in his preference for political platforms, traditions and leaders, Mr. Brown is most democratic in his relations to those having business dealings with him. One of his business methods is so eminently characteristic of the man as to merit mention here. Instead of hiring men outright to work his lands, he leases the various acreages to tenants on a crop-share basis, thus guaranteeing a cooperative interest on the part of the men tilling the soil and cultivating its products.

Mr. Brown was married at San Francisco on February 3, 1871, to Miss Kate Stanford, who was born in Placer County, the daughter of Charles P. and Helen Stanford -- the former a cousin of Leland Stanford, promoter, governor and founder of Stanford University. Charles P. Stanford moved to San Francisco, where the Stanford home was established, and Mrs. Brown enjoyed the educational advantages of that cosmopolitan center. Charles P. Sanford was a mining and lumber-mill man, and had interests in various parts of the State. Six children blessed this union of Mr. and Mrs. Brown, of whom only two are now living; and there are thirteen grandchildren. Lottie died in infancy. John is now the manager of his father's bank. Arthur is associated with his father in Walnut Grove. Frank E. is deceased, as are also Helen (Mrs. Durbin), and Alexander R., who passed away in 1918, a victim to the influenza. The son John has four children: Stanford B., John, Jeanette, and Hubert; Arthur has two children, Myron M. and Kathryn; two children gave joy to the late Mrs. Durbin: Jean and Robert; and Frank E. Jr., bears the honored name of his late father; while Alexander R., previous to his demise, had four children: Josephine, Christine, Alexander and Nora. Mr. Brown is a great "home-body," and associated all of this family with him, in some capacity or other, until their demise, giving each the best and most promising berth at his command, and doing what he could to develop their lives so that living might be a joy to them as well as to himself. Being such an enthusiast for the comforts and the pleasures of the hearth, he has never joined any fraternal order; but all who have known him well will attest to the fact that he has always in life made his social relations to others correspond to the teachings of the largest and the truest of fraternal orders, extending, wherever and whenever he could, the open, uplifting hand, and seeking to apply in all his earthly walk the splendid tenets of the Golden Rule.

(Since this article was written, Mr. Brown, while apparently in good health, was stricken with heart disease, and passed away on the 11th day of June, 1923, the community, and Sacramento County as well, thus losing one of their most progressive and enterprising upbuilders.)

Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 306-309. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.