Alexander Brown

Alexander Brown (17 November 1764 – 4 April 1834), was an Irish merchant and banker. Beginning as a merchant trader, first of linen in Belfast, then of cotton and tobacco after migrating to Baltimore, Maryland, he later shifted his focus to financial services. He founded Alex. Brown & Sons, the oldest investment banking firm in the US, in 1800, and with his sons operated a network of banks in the US and England. He made his fortune from the transatlantic cotton trade, and was one of the first millionaires in the United States. Early life and emigration Alexander Brown was born 17 November 1764 in Ballymena in County Antrim (now in Northern Ireland), one of four surviving children of William Brown and Margaret Brown (née Davison). As a young man, Brown achieved some success as a linen dealer and auctioneer in Belfast. In 1783 he married Grace Davison, possibly his cousin, from Drumnasole, County Antrim, and they had four surviving children, William (b. 30 May 1784), George (b. 17 April 1787), John (b. 21 May 1788), and James (b. 4 February 1791). These boys were sent to school with the Reverend J. Bradley in Yorkshire. While there is no evidence that Brown was involved in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, he did go into hiding in its aftermath and, perhaps as a consequence of the resulting political and economic conditions in Ireland, he emigrated to the United States. Several years earlier Brown's brother-in-law, Dr George Brown, and his younger brother, Stewart, who had sold linen goods supplied by Alexander, had emigrated to Baltimore, Maryland. Thus it was to Baltimore, a growing port town of 26,514 people on the upper Chesapeake Bay, that Brown, his wife, and son William (the younger sons still in school in Yorkshire) sailed in 1800. By 20 December Brown had established an address and his "Irish Linen Warehouse" and was able to publish in the Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser that he had for sale linen goods, three dozen mahogany chairs, and four clocks. This was the beginning of a thriving business for Alexander Brown & Company, importing general merchandise and Irish linens to Baltimore, the latter supplied by his cousin William Gihon and friends in Ulster, and exporting tobacco and cotton to Liverpool from the American south.