San Francisco-Sacramento County CA Archives Obituaries.....Brown, Harry March 12, 1895
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Steve Harrison raleighwood@juno.com February 14, 2010, 4:51 am

Sacramento Daily Record-Union, March 13, 1895
“HE ONCE KILLED A WOMAN HERE. 
Close of the Career of a Noted Character. “Horsoshoe" Brown Murders His Wife In 
San Francisco, and Then Commits Suicide. 

A man named Harry Brown, but who is generally known as "Horseshoe" Brown, 
killed his wife in San Francisco yesterday and then took his own life. It is 
thought his mind had become affected through recent financial losses, or a 
morbid fear of losing some of his money, and that the terrible crime was the 
result of dementia. 

The affair recalls Brown's brief career in this city [Sacramento] some twenty-
five years ago, when he killed a woman in a low resort here and was sent to the 
State Prison, from which he was subsequently pardoned by Governor Booth. Prior 
to his coming to Sacramento he had led a criminal life. 

Speaking of Brown to a San Francisco reporter yesterday, Police Captain 
Dunleavy of that city said, after telling of Brown's escape from the jail while 
charged with grand larceny: "Along in 1872 Brown tired of sailing. He could not 
come to San Francisco, but he turned up in Sacramento, where he shot and killed 
a woman of the town, with whom he had been living. There was a great hue and 
cry when the murder was discovered, but Brown contrived to slip through the 
officers' fingers, and coming to this city, again shipped on a Panama steamer 
and was safe from pursuit before we knew that he had been in town. 

"This last escapade, so to call it, seemed to make him bolder, for he slipped 
back into the city a few months later and fell into the hands of one of the 
harbor police officers and a special named Joe Dunne, who afterward went to the 
State's prison himself. 

"After his arrest Brown was sent to Sacramento, tried for the shooting of the 
woman, convicted and sentenced to ten years in San Quentin. But he was too 
smart to serve out his term. During the administration of Governor Booth the 
discovery was made that Brown was dying of consumption. It was said that the 
near approach of death had a wonderful change in the hardened Brown. He had 
been converted through the ministrations of the prison chaplain and was 
sincerely repentant for the wicked life he had led. The change of heart was 
radical and most edifying, and so worked upon the sympathies of the good but 
simple people who visited the prison that they interested themselves m his 
behalf and succeeded in so representing the pathetic side of the case of the 
dying and repentant convict to Governor Booth so strongly that a pardon was 
issued. 

"Brown returned from the penitentiary to San Francisco, and to the great 
surprise of those who had petitioned for his pardon, regained his health and 
strength immediately. It is needless to say that he at once resumed his old 
ways. The sickness which had resulted in his pardon was brought about by eating 
soap—a familiar convict-trick, but one that was comparatively unknown at that 
time. 

"Shortly after his release from the penitentiary Brown married a girl from the 
country. She was a recent arrival and Brown met her in a dive, where she was 
selling beer. The newly married couple then moved up on to Kearney street and 
opened a sailor boarding-house in what was known as 'Battle Row,' between 
Pacific and Broadway. 

"Subsequently Brown conducted boarding-houses in different parts of the town, 
and, like most of the boarding masters, made money rapidly. He was worth at the 
time of his death in the neighborhood of $100,000, I should think. During his 
career as a boarding master he paid special attention to shipping of crews for 
whalers and sealers, and there was hardly any kind of crooked work in that 
connection in which he did not have a hand. 

"As I said, this is a most fitting end to a long career of crime.

"Another story, told by a friend of Brown, a that he had really suffered money 
losses and was nearly or quite “broke.” END

Additional Comments:
Sacramento Daily Record-Union, March 13, 1895 (Wednesday), Page 8, Column 4.


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