A Problem with Joseph Brown's Wives?

There seems to be a fair amount of confusion with respect to the mother of Janet Brown, wife of Alexander Jameson. The two known traditional sources of information on this subject are: "The Jamesons in Ammerica"[1] and "History of Old Chester"[2] (NH). In addition, there is now a more recent (2002) work done on this Brown family by Daniel Laguitton of Sutton, Canada as part of his research and a paper he published on Brown’s Drops, “The Old Sutton Remedy.” Mr Laugitton references that "Most of the material used as reference in this paper was provided by Mrs Elizabeth Mc Cann, grand-daughter of William Brown Jr. whose scrap-books were graciously made available for this research. Most of the genealogical data is from a succinct family history left by William Brown Jr., who refers to information written by Mary Brown on “June 9, 1867," the later part being most likely the same information E.O.Jameson refers to on page 320 of his book "The Jamesons in America." Unfortunately Mr. Laguitton, whose main interests lie with Dr. Brown's medicine, concentrates only on Joseph Brown, his son Joseph Brown Jr. and those descendants of his who have connections with that medicine. It is not intended as a genealogy of the larger Brown family per se., and then only the history of those connected with "Browns Drops.". Unfortunately there is no mention of Joseph Brown Sr.'s second wife and family as does E.O.Jameson, who apparently had access to much of the same information some 100 years earlier.

Our goal here is to analyze all the information currently available and see if we can conclusively determine exactly who the parents of Jenny Brown were. Secondarily it would be nice to know more about Jenny Brown's family, siblings, etc.

On page 319 of "The Jamesons in America," E.O. Jameson lists Mary (Guy) Brown as the mother of Jenny Jameson and then on page 320, in the "Memoranda" narrative lists Martha Otterson as Joseph Brown's first wife and Mary Guy as his second wife and mother of seven children to their marriage, including "Janet, who married Alexander Jameson."

However in an older book "History of Old Chester," Benjamin Chase lists on page 477, a Joseph Brown as married to Ann Otterson and on the next page are listed eight children, including a son Joseph Brown Jr. married (2nd) to a Molly Gay.

It can be safely assumed that Joseph Brown was Jenny Brown Jameson's father, given that the name Joseph Brown Jameson was used for a child of Alexander and Jenny (Brown) Jameson as well as descendant children for several generations. Furthermore, because both Ann and Joseph (Jr.) are listed as children to a Joseph Brown married to a woman with the surname Otterson in both of these sources (books) that these are one and the same families, even though the book "History of Old Chester" makes no reference to a Jenny (or Janet) Brown, nor any reference to Alexander Jameson or for that matter to any Jameson in connection with any Brown.

E.O.Jameson identifies Joseph Brown's first wife as Martha Otterson. This is the only known reference as Martha. Everywhere else, including the Chester book and Daniel Laguitton's work (presumably the same source as E.O. Jameson used) the name is Ann. Their eldest surviving daughter is named Ann and their surviving son Joseph (JR) named two of his daughters Ann. Neither of these children, Ann and Joseph, were known to have named a daughter Martha. E.O.Jameson must have gotten this wrong.

We know that E.O.Jameson developed information on the people and places in his book from Independent research and from information supplied to him from family members. Curiously E.O.Jameson does not reference this (1869) book as a source of information in his own (1899) book, although it may have been used. He does however say that Mary Brown, daughter of Joseph Brown Jr., "writes an account of the family." From this it may be safe to assume is E.O.Jameson's primary source or information on this Brown's family.

Given that E.O.Jameson used information from the granddaughter of Joseph Brown (the aunt of Jenny Brown Jameson), It would be safe to assume this is the most reliable and accurate information available.

E.O.Jameson shows Joseph Brown Sr. married Mary Guy as his second wife and that they had seven children including Janet (Jenny) who married Alexander Jameson. This seem to be the only source of this information and presumably came from information shared by Mary Brown and acknowledge by E.O.Jameson himself. The Chester Book makes no mention of any second marriage or any of the seven children born of this marriage as does the Jameson's in America. The Chester book however does show that Joseph Brown Jr. married a Molly Gay for his second wife. This is the only reference to a Gay or Guy in the Chester Book and the only known reference of it's type anywhere apart from the Guy reference in the Jameson Book. From at least the burial records in Peacham, Vermont, we can draw the conclusion that Joseph Brown Jr. died with Elizabeth Curry as his wife. She outlives him by twenty years and is buried with him in the same plot at the same cemetery. One explaination for this could be that Benjamin Chase found some sort of reference that a Mary/Molly Gay/Guy marries a Joseph Brown and that he, because of the date and ages of the available Joseph Brown's known to him, incorrectly attributed it to Joseph Brown Jr., instead of Joseph Brown Sr. What we don't know is if E.O.Jameson got his information for his link from Mary Brown or if he saw the same reference as Benjamin Chase and made the conclusion favoring Joseph Brown Sr. Although Mary Brown would be the most logical conclusion.

It should be noted that DAR patriot records show both Joseph Sr., and Joseph Jr., as Revolutionary War soldiers from New Hampshire. Joseph Sr. listed as one wife (Ann Otterson) and Joseph Jr. with 2 wives (#1=?? and #2=Elizabeth Curry).

E.O.Jameson is the only known source of reference that Joseph Brown Sr. married Mary Guy and had seven children with her including Jenny Brown. He made this reference at the publication of his book in 1800 and would have had the information sometime prior to then. We know, because he said so, that his source for information on this brown family was at least in part included work that Mary Brown (daughter of Joseph Brown Jr.) had done although her death in 1871 would suggest he did not talk with her directly. It is possible that E.O.Jameson talked with her nephew William Brown JR. who is known to have "scrapbooks" on the old family now in the hands of descendants, but this was never referenced by E.O. We know that Henry Brown was working on a manuscript of the Brown family (never published) and that E.O. Jameson references him in his book. It would be difficult to believe that E.O.Jameson was not aware of the Chester History book, yet he still contradicts it's findings of this family with respect to the Molly Gay/Mary Guy issue and the children ascribed to Joseph Brown Sr. and Ann Otterson. One has to think the information available to him at the time would have been compelling enough to conclude that Mary Guy was the second wife of Joseph Brown Sr., and that seven children (six of which were in the Chester book) were a result of that second marriage. It should be noted here that Daniel Laguitton's work, based on information obtained from the family going back to the mid 1800's, says that Joseph Brown Sr, and Ann Otterson had five children of which only two (Joseph Jr and Ann) survived to maturity. Seven others, which E.O.Jameson attributed to the second marriage, of which six are listed in the Chester book, clearly survived to maturity and and know to have married and children of their own.