Early Life
Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Jacob Jennings Brown was the son of Samuel and Abi (White) Brown. His middle name was given to him in honor of his paternal grandmother who was a descendant of Samuel Jennings, the latter having been a deputy governor of West Jersey and later receiver general of Pennsylvania in the early 18th century.
Raised a Quaker, Brown graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1790. He taught school and, in 1798, moved to upstate New York. There he was a pioneer settler and landowner in the Black River country and helped open the area up for further settlement. He and his extended family established mills and a store, laid out roads and improved navigation on the lower Black River.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)