Samuel Brown (Wisconsin politician)

Brown was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, and grew up on a farm in the area. At age 18 he left the farm to learn the carpentry trade, and in 1833 moved to Chicago, Illinois to work as a builder. In 1834, he came to Milwaukee in the Wisconsin Territory at the request of Solomon Juneau, making the trip together with Horace Chase and Morgan L. Burdick. Brown moved with his family and settled permanently in Milwaukee in 1835, and worked as a builder along with his brother Daniel,^[1] including building a store for Juneau at the corner of Water Street and Wisconsin Avenue, and the first county courthouse of Milwaukee County. He built himself a log cabin on Cherry Street, between Second and Third streets, which was one of the first white settlers' homes built in what was to become Milwaukee. On September 16, 1835, he was the first purchaser of a building lot in Kilbourntown.

Milwaukeeans called him "Deacon Brown", since he held the first public religious exercises in Milwaukee in May 1835. Brown helped to found the city's First Presbyterian Church on April 11, 1837, and later Plymouth Congregational on May 20, 1841. Brown served as an elder at both churches. He lived in a house bounded by Galena, Cherry, Second, and Third Streets.^[2]

By 1842, he had settled on an extensive farm in the area including what is now Johnson Park on Fond du Lac Avenue between 17th and 20th Streets, where he would live the rest of his life. In July of that year, this farm was a predecessor to the Underground Railroad, and provided refuge to Caroline Quarlls, a 16-year-old runaway slave from a plantation in St. Louis, and the first documented of many such fugitives who would escape to freedom in Canada through Wisconsin.

In the first election held in Milwaukee in September 1835, with less than 60 voters, Brown was elected one of three "commissioners of schools" (school board members).

Brown was elected treasurer, commissioner of highways and commissioner of schools for the Town of Milwaukee when that was split off from the new City of Milwaukee in 1846, although the city would later grow to encompass his home once more.

He was elected to a one-year term in the Wisconsin State Assembly of the 3rd Wisconsin Legislature as a Freesoiler or "Free Democrat" in 1850 (succeeding Robert Wason Jr.),^[3] and also served on the Milwaukee Common Council.