James M. Brown Biography


	This biography appears on page 1785 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	JAMES M. BROWN, judge of the county courts of McPherson county, 
comes of staunch old colonial stock, the genealogy in the paternal line 
showing that the family was founded in America in 1500. The ancestors 
were driven out of England during the persecution of those identified 
with the Society of Friends, or Quakers, and they filed to Holland and 
thence to America at the opening of the sixteenth century, as previously 
noted, the original settlement having been made either in New England or 
Rhode Island, while the name was for many generations more particularly 
identified with agricultural pursuits than any other vocation. Judge 
Brown was born on a farm in Oneida county, New York, on the 10th of 
January, 1861, and is a son of John and Hannah (Mitchell) Brown, both of 
whom were born and reared in that same county, and both of whom are now 
deceased. The paternal grandfather of the subject likewise bore the name 
of John, and he likewise was born in the state of New York, whither his 
father, Thomas J. Brown, removed from Rhode Island, the place of the 
latter's nativity. Thomas J. was an active participant in the war of the 
Revolution; and this implies that he must, in a sense, have deviated 
from the principles of his ancestral faith, since the Quakers are 
opposed to warfare. The father of our subject became a successful farmer 
of Oneida county, was public-spirited, his integrity was beyond question 
and he wielded no little influence in his community, having been called 
upon to serve in various county offices. In his family were two 
children, James M., the subject of this sketch, and Minnie B., a 
resident of Chicago, Illinois. The parents were consistent and devoted 
members of the Friends church.

	Judge Brown received his early educational training in the public 
schools of his native county, and then entered Hamilton College, in the 
same county, in which famous old institution he continued his studies 
until his health became so impaired as to compel him to abandon his 
course and seek a change of climate. Accordingly he went to the south, 
and at Galveston, Texas, in 1876, he joined the engineer department of 
the government and was identified with its field work for the ensuing 
six years, in various portions of the south and west. In 1883 he came to 
South Dakota and located in La Grace, Campbell county, where he remained 
three years, at the expiration of which he removed to Eureka, McPherson 
county, where he has since maintained his home, having been one of the 
early settlers of the town and having been closely identified with its 
material, civic and political development and progress. In the meanwhile 
he had taken up the study of law and so thoroughly covered the field of 
jurisprudence as to secure admission to the bar of the territory of 
Dakota in 1887, while he has ever since continued to be identified with 
legal affairs in this section of the state, either as a general practi-
tioner, public prosecutor or as judge. He was state's attorney of the 
county for several years, and has served on the bench of the county 
court for a total of three terms, though not absolutely in a consecutive 
way, while he is incumbent of this responsible office at the time of 
this writing and has made a record for fair and impartial rulings, based 
upon the law and evidence, so that he has had few reversals of his 
decisions, by the higher tribunals. In 1901 he was appointed by Governor 
Herreid as one of the three code commissioners to revise and codify the 
laws of the state of South Dakota, the other two commissioners being 
Judge Bartlett Tripp and the late Judge Gideon C. Moody. The Judge is a 
Knight Templar Mason and identified with the Order of the Eastern Star, 
the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America.

	On the 8th of January, 1895, Judge Brown was united in marriage to 
Miss Hattie A. Van Gorder, who was born and reared in Prairie du Chien, 
Wisconsin.