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Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County
Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1890

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The Biography of James Harvey Craig BROWN 

Pages 794-795, transcribed in full by Karen CRANE Goggin 

[Surnames: BAKER, BRAND, BROWN, CRAIG, ELGIN, HAM, HETTRICK, LAMPERALL] 

    
JAMES HARVEY CRAIG BROWN, a prosperous lumber dealer of Farmington, has been engaged in this business here for the past four years and for the same length of time has operated the Iowa Central Elevator at this point. He is a native of this county, born in Astoria, March 12, 1856, and a son of the well-known honored pioneer Methodist minister, the Rev. A. F. Brown. His mother Martha E. (Craig) Brown, was born in Ohio, was well educated in its schools and was a school teacher. 
    
The Rev. Abraham F. Brown was born at Louisville, Ky., of which his parents were early pioneers. They were of Welsh descent and when he was quite young they removed to Ohio, afterwards to Indiana, and in 1818 came to Illinois, and were among the very first settlers of this county, locating within a quarter of a mile of the present site of the village of Astoria, where they built a log cabin and lived a pioneer life among the Indians. In Kentucky he had to go a distance of three miles to school. In Illinois there were no schools when he came here and many a night did he study by torch or candle light till one or two o¹clock in the morning, his Bible being his principal text book. When a young man he was appointed commissioner to lay out the first roads in Fulton and Schuyler counties. 
    
Mr. Brown was naturally of a religious turn of mind and was converted to Methodism in 1833. He was licensed as an exhorter August 25, 1834, and to preach March 26, 1838. He was desired to take a position as a stationary minister, but he preferred to do evangelical work. He was very much opposed to slavery and supported the Whig party. He was organized many churches and was always in favor of education and progress. This consistent and devoted Christian passed from the scenes of his useful labors in 1882, at the age of seventy-six years. He had ever done what he could to advance the kingdom of God upon earth and the world had been made better by his living in it. 
    
The Rev. Mr. Brown was twice married; his second wife the mother of our subject was a daughter of John and Rebecca Craig, who came from Scotland to America and were pioneers of Ohio. She came to Illinois for her health and taught in the northern part of the State several years before her marriage. She had three children, James H. C., Cummings F., and Samuel L., (who died at the age of fourteen years.) Cummings is a machinist making his home in Kansas City, Mo., although he travels for a large agricultural house. He married Miss alice Ham and has two children. The four children living of Mr. Brown's first marriage are John, who resides near Vermont; Rebecca, wife of Samuel Elgin; Angeline, wife of William Lamperall; Caroline, wife of Israel Baker, all of whom reside near Astoria. 
    
James Harvey Craig Brown of whom we write, was reared in Astoria, and was educated in its schools. His father, like the most of the Methodist ministers of his day, devoted so much of his time to his Christian labors that he did not accumulate a very large property, although he was in comfortable circumstances and owned a good farm of eighty acres, and on that old homestead our subject was trained to a useful life. At the age of twenty-one he was married to Miss Louisa A. Hettrick, a native of Astoria. To them have come two children‹Maude E., and Pearl T. Mr. And Mrs. Brown have a beautiful suburban home adjoining the city on the south. Here he erected a handsome residence and has twenty acres of well improved land around it. 
    
Mrs. Brown's father, William Hettrick was an old settler and a well-to-do farmer of Astoria, entering his farm on section 21, March 6, 1837. He was a native of Cumberland County, Pa., and December 13, 1839, was married to Ella Ann Brand, who died some nine years before he did. His death occurred December 17, 1883, at the age of sixty-eight years, nine months and eight days. He came to this State from Virginia where his parents had settled when he was quite young. He lived in Edgar County two years and thence moved to Bernadotte and there worked at his trade of a tailor two years. At the expiration of that time he turned his attention to farming, taking up the tract of Government land before mentioned in that part of Astoria then known as Washington. He lived long and was prospered, and died honored and respected by all who knew him. He was a very consistent Christian and a life-long member of the Lutheran Church. 
    
After marriage Mr. And Mrs. Brown lived on a farm near Astoria for about five years, then came to Farmington in 1882 where he established himself in the grain and mill business. In 1887, he bought out the business of his predecessor and derives a satisfactory income from it. Besides his lumber interests he is conducting a good grain business, and is in a fair way to become one of the wealthiest men of the town. He is a careful manager and good financier, and stands well in the business world. In politics he uses his influence for the interest of the Republican party, he being quite radical in his political views. Religiouly, he is a Presbyterian and a member of the church of that denomination.