Background and Family
John Brown was born in County Londonderry, Ireland in 1738, and about 1750 his family emigrated to Pennsylvania. He matured there and taught school in Lancaster County.
In 1770 he married Jane McDowell (1750–1833), the sister of Joseph McDowell. The couple settled into frontier life near her brothers. They built a farm on the banks of the Yadkin River in Surry County, North Carolina. They would have eleven children: James (1771), William (1774), Elizabeth (1776), John (1780), Ann (1782), Hugh (1784), Hamilton (1786), Thomas (1788), Margaret (1790) and Allen (1793). Elizabeth would marry James Stewart who became a U.S. Congressman. Most of their children would extend the frontier even further, moving to western Virginia and Tennessee.
Read more about this topic: John Brown (North Carolina)
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