My Genealogy Hound

Edwin J. Brown was born in York County, Penn., November 17, 1834, and is a son of Thomas and Susannah (Griest) Brown. The father was a native of Baltimore, Md., a farmer by occupation, and immigrated to Iowa with his family in 1855, locating in Van Buren County, where he died. The mother was a descendant of an old Quaker family, of her name, that came to Pennsylvania with the William Penn colony. This lady also died in Van Buren County. Of the five sons and two daughters born to them four sons and one daughter were raised to maturity, and now Capt. Joel and our subject are the only surviving children. Edwin J. was reared to manhood on the farm, but early evinced a desire to study medicine, and gained quite a knowledge of drugs and medicines by being in an apothecary’s shop a good deal during his youth. In 1859 he embarked in the drug business in Birmingham, Iowa. He then moved to Memphis during the last year of the war, and engaged in business there for two years. He next went to La Grange, Mo., and his next occupation was that of a traveling man for a cigar and a tobacco house. In 1867 he came to Edina, and purchased Jesse Sherwood’s drug store, where his present store now stands. He was very successful here, and built the store he now occupies in 1879, in which he carries a large and well selected line of drugs, paints, oils, books, stationery and fancy toilet articles. His stock of this line of goods is not surpassed in Northeast Missouri. He is a member of the State Pharmaceutical Association, and has been a director of the Knox County Savings Bank since its organization, having been its vice-president for some years; and he is also one of the incorporators, a stockholder and vice-president of the Holler Mill Company of Edina. In April, 1861, he was married to Mary A. S. Cock, a native of Pennsylvania, but of English parentage. This lady died June 30, 1870. To this marriage five children were born, viz.: Joel Carlton, M. D., of Hurdland, Mo.; B. Bert, druggist in Omaha, Neb.; Charles A., William Eli and Mary (deceased). August 8, 1873, he married Amelia X. Sever, his present wife, a native of Ohio, born near Cincinnati. This union has been blessed with four children, viz.: Edwin S., John Griest, Thomas Claude and Mary Edna. The eldest is dead. Mr. Brown has been a Republican since the organization of that party, and at the commencement of the war enlisted in the Union Army, being elected lieutenant of his brother’s company, H, Fifth Iowa Infantry, but resigned before entering active service, having been in poor health from his youth. He has been active in municipal affairs in Edina, having been a member of the city council several times. He is a Knight Templar, a Knight of Honor and a member of the A. O. U. W.