Brown and his young family moved from Ohio to Crawford County in 1826. They cleared the farm, put up a homestead, now gone, that was close to where the museum is and resided at that spot until returning to Ohio in 1835. At times, Brown employed up to a dozen men at the tannery. He was leader in his frontier community, organizing a post office, a school and a church. He grieved over his first wife's child-birth-related death and was remarried to Crawford County girl, Mary Ann Day.