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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

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The Biography of Curtis D. BROWN 

[Surnames: BROWN, MCDOUGAL, MILLER, PALMER] 

BROWN, CURTIS D. (deceased) 

    
Curtis D. Brown was a native of New York, where he was born in 1834, the son of Alexander and Sarah (McDougal) Brown, natives of New York. Alexander Brown was a soldier of the war of 1812, in which he served as a volunteer from Washington County, NY. In the ranks with him was Mrs. Brown's grandfather, Jacob Miller, both of whom survived that conflict. 
    
Mr. Brown's father was at one time employed as a "driver" of one of the cars or stages on the first railroad built in the United States, which connected the cities of Albany and Schenectady, New York. On this line which now constitutes a part of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad system, which brought into use the first locomotive engine ever joined to cars in this county. 
    
The subject received his early training in the public schools of New York and a few years afterward located in Fulton County. He secured employment with Sanford and Barrows, marble and granite dealers, with whom he continued until 1868, as their traveling representative. He then entered the employ of the firm of Piper Woolen Mills, where he remained until 1871, then moved to Altoona, IL where he engaged in farming about two years. Returning to Fulton County he farmed in Farmington Twp., 3 miles southwest of the town, on a farm called the Loomis Place, since known as the C. D. Brown farm, on Sect. 16, Farmingtown Twp. He remained there a while and then he purchased the Bristol House in Farmington built by a Mr. Palmer about 1854. The house being 40 x 40 feet in dimension, furnished in oak, containing eight rooms, with a large veranda half encircling it, on Fort Street, the main thoroughfare of the town.