- REV. WILLIAM FISH BROWN, M.A. The subject of this sketch
was born in Beloit, Wis.,
- March 18, 1845. When eight years old an attack of scarlet
fever left him with slightly impaired hearing, a difficulty against
which he has had to contend through life. In February, 1860,
he joined the First Presbyterian Church of Beloit. During part
of the year 1864 he served as a private in Company B, 40th Wisconsin
Infantry. Graduating from Beloit College with honors in 1866,
and from Union Theological Seminary in May, 1870, he then became
a licensed Presbyterian minister. He was ordained by Milwaukee
Presbytery, meeting at Janesville, May 3, 1871. June 24, 1870,
he married Miss Hila M. BENNETT, and now has five children -
William Washburn, of Beloit, Wis., Anna Haven, Edwards Bennett,
Robert Leland and Benjamin Warren.
- After Mr. BROWN had been a home missionary at Black River
Falls, in Wisconsin, two years
- 1871 and 1872, he offered himself to the Presbyterian Board
as a foreign missionary, and was accepted and appointed to Japan.
While waiting to be sent out, he served temporarily on the Geological
Survey of Wisconsin as map-maker, and then occupied a pastorate
at Maywood, Ill., until June, 1875. The Board having decided
on fuller consideration that his deficient hearing precluded
foreign work, Mr. BROWN accepted a call to the First Presbyterian
Church of Beaver Dam, Wis., where he remained three years, until
July 1, 1878.
- During the next two years, while residing at Beloit and personally
attending an invalid father, Mr.
- BROWN served as Stated Supply for the Presbyterian Church
of Baraboo, and then for the Congregational Church of Evansville,
Wis. Oct. 3, 1880, he began supplying the First Presbyterian
Church of Janesville, Wis., was called to be their pastor, April
14, 1881, and was duly installed Dec. 15 of that year. In April
1880, he was elected the Stated Clerk of his Presbytery. The
Northwestern Presbyterian of June 22, 1889, kindly says: "The
Presbyterian Church of Janesville, Wis., has been greatly blessed
in the labors of their faithful pastor, the Rev. W. F. BROWN.
The various departments of church work are moving steadily forward.
Their pastor is the laborious Stated Clerk of the Presbytery
of Madison, and an example in every good word and work."
(This statement should be well shaken before taken. - W.F.B.)
- Mr. BROWN's life motto has been "I must work while it
is day." His most natural faults, he says,
- have been selfishness and self-conceit, both of which he
has sought to overcome. As a public speaker he has a clear voice
and distinct utterance, and a wide-awake manner. His thoughts
are usually progressive and plainly put. Not a revivalist, he
has yet received some into the church at almost every communion
of his ministry. He seeks to preach and to practice sanctified
common sense. He is thoroughly at home with young people, and
has of them in his church a notable band.
-
- Taken from "The Portrait and Biographical Album of
Rock County, Wis." (c)1889, p. 427.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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