Brown, James N.

Born: 1806-10-01 Bryan Station, Kentucky

Died: 1868-11-16 Sangamon County, Illinois

Brown married Polly A. Smith in Kentucky, and the couple moved with Brown's family to Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1833. Brown represented Sangamon County as a Whig in the Illinois House of Representatives, winning elections in 1840, 1842, 1846, and 1852. In 1850, Brown was a farmer in Sangamon County with his wife and five children. The family held $30,000 in real property at that time. Always interested in agricultural pursuits, he was the founder and elected first president of the Illinois State Agricultural Society in 1853 and was elected president again in 1854.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Sangamon County, IL, 218; John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 147; Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 6 March 1840, 2:6; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 344, 365, 419.