Brown, Samuel

Samuel Brown, born in Augusta, Maine, on January 4, 1832, was a prominent pioneer cattleman and sheepman who helped establish Fresno County. At the age of twenty-one, he endured an arduous eleven-month sea voyage around Cape Horn from Boston to San Francisco. Upon his arrival, he worked for several years on the Dr. Marsh stock ranch south of Antioch, eventually serving as its foreman for six years. After a subsequent five-year period operating a butcher business in Antioch, he sold his interests and drove a band of sheep into the undeveloped Fresno County plains in 1869. He homesteaded 160 acres and purchased an equal amount south of Millerton, where he pursued grain farming and stock raising while leasing three additional sections of land for twelve years.

In 1868, Mr. Brown married Sarah Jane Gift in Martinez, and together they raised a large family consisting of seven children named Charles, George, Mary, John H., Maude S., Mrs. George Cobb, and Mrs. Nellie Coleman. His wife, who had arrived in California via the Isthmus of Panama in 1856, shared fully in the immense labor and hardships of developing the early commonwealth. Following Mr. Brown death on August 5, 1897, Mrs. Brown maintained the stock ranch near Millerton until 1917, when she relocated to a new home on Glenn Avenue in Fresno. Their industrious lives and agricultural operations left a lasting impact on the regional history and development of Fresno County.