Sketch LXVII

A Famous Middleton Pioneer Hunter—Middleton Browns

The oldest man living cannot remember the time when the sand knoll on the east side of Lot 9, 8th concession of Charlotteville, did not have a house on it, except, indeed, it be quite recently, since the old house has been torn down. This old relic, which was an imposing structure in its day, has been an abode for moles and bats since the time when the present active generation of men was not yet born. It was here, in the early morning of the present century, that Samuel Brown, a New Jersey Loyalist, came with his wife and his five sons and four daughters and settled.[1] He left New Jersey at the close of the war and settled on land in the Niagara District, which he afterwards drew from the Government. This family of Browns possessed a strong predilection for pioneering. Samuel Brown had settled his family comfortably at Niagara, and the only apparent reason for his move to the new Long Point settlement, and especially for chosing such a lonely spot in the interior of the township, is that he preferred an isolated life far removed from neighbors, where he might enjoy the solitudes of the forest. And from this lonely home four of the five sons went out as pioneers in the township of Middleton.

General McArthur’s troop passed the Brown home on their return after raiding the settlement. The family secreted themselves in the adjacent forest thickets until the invaders with their prisoners had left the ridge many miles behind. When the Brown girls became grandmothers they never tired of telling the story to their grandchildren. It was the one great event of that portion of their girlhood days spent on this lonely Charlotteville sand knoll.

The names of the five sons were James, Victor, Samuel, John and George; and the names of the daughters were Mary, Sarah, Elizabeth and Margaret.

James Brown, the eldest son, was born in 1783, in New Jersey. He married Priscilla Vansickle and settled on Talbot Street, Middleton. Here on Lot 41, south, he kept a tavern for several years, and accumulated considerable property. He was one of the original pioneers on this first thoroughfare opened up in the township. Talbot street was laid out in 1806, by Colonel Thomas Talbot, a member of Governor Simcoe’s staff.[2] The Governor granted numerous tracts of land to the Colonel, lying along the proposed roadway, but the opening of the road was not effected until about 1824, and then by local effort principally. The Browns were among the first settlers in the township west of Fredericksburg,[3] and it is said their settlement was made soon after the close of the war of 1812. The Sovereigns and Lawsons settled at Fredericksburg about the same time; but it was not until about 1823 that a settlement was made as far west at Courtland by the Byerlays, Tisdales and others.[4]

Captain “Jimmie” Brown was an important personage in the early times. He was a staunch Loyalist, and dearly loved a red coat and cocked hat; and when he had a sword dangling at his side he felt like championing the cause of Great Britain single handed. The old training days were red-letter days for Captain Brown. He was small in stature, but possessed a wiry, cast-iron constitution, which enabled him to withstand the buffetings of life’s billows for eighty-nine years. He died in 1871, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. J.A. Wilson, after a protracted and heroic struggle with the grim adversary. He was twice married, his second wife being a Mrs. Elizabeth House. He left one son, Talbot; and four daughters—Margaret, Priscilla, Mary and Anna; who married, respectively, John A. Wilson, Peter Johnson, Peter Cline and James Clinton.

Victor Brown, second son of Samuel, married Hannah, daughter of Abraham Smith, the old Charlotteville pioneer. He was the only son in the family who did not take to bush pioneering. He preferred boating, and placed a mortgage on his wife’s Government land grant, or, rather, land which had been exchanged for it, for a boat. The boat was lost, and the land passed into the hands of the mortgagees. Mr. Brown took his departure from Long Point, and his wife returned to her father’s home, where she lived until she died. They had no children.

Samuel Brown, third son of Samuel, married Mary Haley, and settled on the south side of Talbot street, about two miles west of his brother James. Samuel Brown was a pioneer of pioneers. He was a famous hunter and trapper. For ten or twelve years he lived in the solitudes of the tangled swamps and pine forests of Middleton, without neighbors, and before the “street” was opened up and traversed even by pioneer land-hunters. The experiences of Samuel Brown with his trusty rifle, his numerous traps, and his faithful dogs, during these years of pioneer life in the wilds of Middleton, if written down, would make an intensely interesting volume. If he had kept a diary with daily notations of his hunting experiences, the old relic would command a fabulous price to-day. The stories handed down to his grandchildren are numerous and varied, one of which, only will be given here. After settlement had become well established, the numerous packs of wolves that made night hideous in the Middleton woods were very annoying to the settlers, and a bounty of six dollars a scalp was paid as a means of exterminating them.. Samuel Brown was one of the principal recipients of this bounty. One Sunday morning he discovered an old she-wolf in the woods, and from long experience he had familiarized himself with the animal’s instincts, and he knew at once that she was searching for a suitable place in which to bring forth her young. He stealthily followed her from place to place, until she came to the hollow trunk of a fallen tree which, after a careful examination, she marked as the place of her choice, according to wolfish custom. The manner of marking the lair, and the proper time to wait after the she-wolf has thus made known her intentions before making an attack, are matters known only to the experienced hunter. When the proper time arrived Mr. Brown proceeded to capture the sheep thief and her family. The mother wolf was not at home, and to make sure of her he crawled feet foremost into the hollow tree, and when the wolf returned he shot her as she entered the log. He secured nine scalps and received $54 for them. This was pretty good pay in those times for a few hours work, and it was work of this kind that enabled Samuel Brown to pay for 400 acres of land. He possessed a rugged constitution, and attained a great age. In his family were five sons—Victor, Hiram, Squire, Henry and James, and three daughters—Hannah, Margaret and Priscilla.

John Brown, fourth son of Samuel, married Jemima Fairchild, and settled on Talbot Street, nearly opposite his brother James. The old John Brown home and the old “Sam” Brown home farther west, were relics of a departed age before the present generation was born. John Brown had one son, Noah, who died single; and four daughters—Elizabeth, Ann, Louise and Margaret. The latter, familiarly know as “Peggy” Brown, married David Long, a carpenter, who settled at Fredericksburg many years ago. Old “Aunt Jemima” was a familiar figure on the streets of Fredericksburg for many years after her husband’s death. When the first construction train on the Air Line pulled into the village, a large crowd of villagers assembled to see it cross the high bridge, and the most astonished spectator among them was “Aunt Jemima.” She was past eighty, and had never before seen a railroad locomotive.

George Brown, youngest son of the old pioneer, was thrice married. By his first wife, Elizabeth Butler, he had three sons—Peter, Levi and Patrick; and three daughters—Louisa, Matilda and Margaret Ann. He married a Boughner for his second wife, who bore him two sons—Daniel and James; and three daughters at one birth—Emeline, Adaline and Caroline. This is probably the only case on record in the county where birth was given to triplets, all of one sex, and all of whom grew up into womanhood and married.[5] George settled in Middleton, about a mile south of his brother James, and lived to eighty-four years old. He had no children by his third wife, Rachel Fonger.

Mary Brown, the eldest daughter of the original Samuel Brown, married M. Vanalstine, and settled near St. Catharines. She raised a large family.

Sarah Brown, the second daughter, married Louis Earle, who settled on a lot near her father’s homestead. She had three sons—Samuel, James and Henry; and five daughters—Electa, Elizabeth, Margaret, Melinda and Phoebe.[6]

Elizabeth Brown, the third daughter, married Henry Butler, and settled in Windham, near Fredericksburg. Subsequently she married George Anderson, and settled in Norwich. She had a large family by her first husband, and two or three children by her second husband.

Margaret Brown, the fourth and last daughter, married Henry Sovereign, the old Middleton pioneer. Her children are enumerated in the Sovereign genealogy. “Aunt Peggy,” as she was familiarly called, possessed the same constitutional vigor and tendency to long life that characterized all the members of her family, having reached a ripe old age when summoned to join her forefathers in the silent city of the dead.

[1] The mention of Samuel Brown’s early residency at Niagara “at the close of the war” is erroneous. Samuel’s children right down to youngest son George were born in New Jersey, this last son about 1801, according to his 1852 census record. The first record of Samuel Brown in Norfolk was his purchase from James Kinney of Lot 9, Concession 8 and the south half of Lot 10, Concession 9, Charlotteville Twp. on January 1, 1809, recorded in the Abstracts of Deeds Register of the township. No record has been found of an earlier residency in the Niagara District.

[2] Colonel Thomas Talbot was a member of Simcoe’s staff during the early 1790’s, but by 1806 was on his own, acting with the permission of the governments of England and Upper Canada to settle pioneers on lands in Middleton Township and in Elgin County.

[3] This is the present town of Delhi.

[4] Middleton Township was among those granted to Colonel Thomas Talbot who placed settlers along the Talbot Road (present Highway 3). Following the performance of required improvements such as clearing some acres and building a house on their lot, the pioneers made application to the Executive Council of Upper Canada for their lots. The earliest settlement in Middleton Township occurred along the Talbot and Bostwick roads in the southwestern part of the township in 1815. Led by pioneers who had earlier farms in Charlotteville Township to the south, there was a steady stream of arrivals in Middleton from 1815 to 1825. By the time of the 1825 Assessment of the township there were 44 settlers listed. One of the first to arrive was John Coltman, formerly a businessman in the old district capital of Charlotteville, who established a tavern on the Talbot Road at the headwaters of Venison Creek in present Guysboro in 1815 (Minutes of the London District Court, p. 143). Another 1815 settler was Pinckney Mabee who settled on the Bostwick Road east of Guysboro (Upper Canada Land Petition “M” Bundle 4, Doc. No. 96). In the eastern part of the township, Eliphalet Gustin, aged just sixteen years old in 1816, settled on Lot 46, North of Talbot Road about a mile west of present Delhi and established a grist mill (Upper Canada Land Petition “G” Bundle 13, Doc. No. 79). James “Jimmie” Brown arrived by about 1818 when his son Talbot was born there. In the 1825 Assessment, Frederick Sovereen was listed on Lots 47 and 48, Concession 1, North of Talbot Road, Middleton Township on the site of present Delhi. In this record, James Brown was listed on Lot 41 South located about three miles west of Delhi. Joseph Lawson, mentioned by Owen, lived just across the town line in Lot 24, Concession 12, Windham Township, the east side of present Delhi, where he was recorded in the 1826 Collector’s Rolls. In Middleton’s central area near the village of Courtland, George Byerley was listed on Lot 25 South and Ephraim Tisdale on Lot 18 North in 1825. Ephraim’s brothers Samuel and John were further west on Lots 34 South and 38 North and South of Talbot Road respectively. Following 1825, the concessions further north and south of the Talbot Road were settled. During the later 1840’s immigrants from Wurtemburg, Germany developed a block of land southwest of Delhi, mentioned in Sketch CV.

[5] In the London District Marriage Register, George Brown’s second marriage to Elsie Ann Boughner was recorded under the date of November 3, 1838. There is one other case of the birth of triplets documented twice to the same couple. Daniel and Mary Ann (Myers) Bennett had triplet sons born in November 1830 and the three shared the three names of the Governor of Canada, Sir John Colborne, among them. This momentous event was reported in the Christian Guardian newspaper issue of November 20, 1830. The same couple then had twins born about 1835. The births of a second set of triplets were reported in The Norfolk Observer in 1841as a major event. None of this set survived to the time of the 1852 Census, although their older siblings did.

“Increase of Population! Prodigious! A few days ago Mrs. Bennet of this place presented her husband with a trifling addition of three (two boys and a girl) to his already large family, we understand that the mother and children are-as well as can be expected-it is stated that the parents intend honoring one of the new arrivals with the name of Victoria! Another is to be called Albert!!-and the other Kent!!! This is the second time that Mrs. B. has had three at a birth, on the last occasion the name of ‘Sir John Colborne’ was divided among them-the boys have since grown up fine healthy lads. Mrs. Bennett has also had twins thrice since her marriage.”

[6] Lewis and Charlotte (Brown) Earle had an additional son William A. Earle recorded with them in the 1852 Census of Charlotteville Township and documented in his marriage record in the Norfolk County Marriage Register.