LEWIS E. BROWN
Lewis E. Brown, farmer and stock-raiser, Delavan, was born in Tazewell County, Ill., March 30, 1862, the son of Daniel and Arietta (Lillie) Brown. His father, also born in Tazewell County, on November 1, 1829, died there in I884. His mother was a native of Otsego County, N. Y., born in 1832. The paternal grandparents of Mr. Brown, William and Rachel (Milner) Brown, were natives respectively of Chester County, Pa., and Maryland. His maternal grandparents were Elisha and Cynthia (Clark) Lillie, the former born in Connecticut, and the latter in New York.
William Brown came to Dillon Township, Tazewell County, in 1828, and became prominent, being elected to the Legislature. Both he and his wife were members of the Society of Friends.
Daniel Brown, the father of Lewis E., was the youngest of thirteen children and the only one born in Illinois. He married and located on Section 35. Dillon Township, and died a heavy landowner in that township and elsewhere. Like his father, he did not seek office, declining nomination for membership on the State Board of Equalization and other positions of honor. He was elected Supervisor, however, and held other posts of trust. The mother of our subject taught in the first graded school in Delavan. She is a member of a prominent New York family, which includes former governors of Vermont, Connecticut and the Empire State itself. An uncle, Lot Clark, a Congressman from New York, in early times owned 50.000 acres of land in the vicinity of Delavan.
Lewis E. Brown was married Aug. 23, 1900, at Joliet. Ill., to Miss Eliza Tefft, a graduate of the Delavan High School, who was born August 9, 1875, being a daughter of Eben and Mary (Rose) Tefft. Her father and grandparents came from Rhode Island about 1840. Of her parents, her mother is still living. Mr. Brown had been previously married, his first wife, who died March 1, 1895, being Minnie Brereton, daughter of Edwin P. and Mary (Broadwell) Brereton, old residents of Pekin.
Mr. Brown was educated at Knox College, and has become a successful farmer and stock- raiser. He has developed an especially prosperous business in the breeding of trotting and Percheron draft horses. Mr. Brown has owned and bred a number of famous prize-winning Percherons. He has made a close study of trotting bloodlines and is, in fact, one of the best known breeders of trotters in the United States today. He has established such a national reputation for strict integrity as has enabled him to dispose of much of the animal product of his stock-farm, solely upon his own recommendations (sight unseen). He has shipped animals to all portions of the United States and Canada, probably more extensively at the weanling age than any other trotting breeder in the country.
Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Tazewell County - page 985