Background
Alexander Brown was born on November 17, 1764 at Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland and was the son of William and Margaretta (Davison) Brown. His father was a keeper of a small but successful linen store in Belfast.
Alexander Brown was born on November 17, 1764 at Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland and was the son of William and Margaretta (Davison) Brown. His father was a keeper of a small but successful linen store in Belfast.
While no precise reason is known for Brown's coming to America, it is altogether likely that the rampant lawlessness in Ireland and the precariousness of all existence there in the late eighteenth century dictated his decision.
Along with his own family he also brought with him a stock of Irish linens and the date of his business start in America is fixed by the appearance December 20, 1800, of an advertisement in the Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, announcing that these linens, three dozen "very nice mahogany hair bottom chairs" and four eight day clocks would be "sold very low. "
During all his life Brown made Baltimore his home and business headquarters and from there directed the banking, the trading and importing operations, the movement of his ships, and the world-wide commercial activities he had begun in the new republic and which his sons were helping him to carry on. One by one he took his sons into partnership and sent them out to establish branches.
William, the eldest, went to Liverpool in 1809 and started the firm later known as Brown, Shipley & Company. John A. Brown went to Philadelphia and organized what later became the firm of Brown Brothers & Company, while James (1791-1877) entered the field in New York, establishing Brown Brothers & Company there.
The modest linen import business Alexander Brown had begun in 1800 grew into an export business as well. First he had undertaken the exporting of cotton to Great Britain, then tobacco. From this as a natural and indispensable adjunct, an international banking business developed. Family and business connections and acquaintanceships in England put the Baltimore firm in an exceptionally advantageous position to handle matters of this sort--a better position, in fact, than almost any other firm of American merchants then occupied.
The change in Alexander Brown's business from that of mercantile house to that of a merchant banking house, was inevitable and rapid. Continuing to expand, he became a ship-owner, for his extensive importations and exportations made it profitable for him to buy and build ships. It was through his foresight, intuition, and courage in the handling of these ships and their cargoes at a time in the world's history when ocean travel was slow and hazardous, not only from wind and weather but from privateers and war-vessels, that Alexander Brown achieved his greatest business triumphs and most of his international reputation as a trader and banker.
His alertness and carefulness kept his firm and its branches on an even keel during the War of 1812, and in the years following the war. Many of the oldest and strongest banking and mercantile houses in the country failed during those years. Brown suffered losses but not great ones, and about 1824 his firm began a period of swift growth. From then until the founder died its record of prosperity in America and England was virtually unbroken. The scope of its trading extended far beyond the early fields of linen, tobacco and cotton, and included everything merchantable from champagne to indigo.
Yet Alexander Brown was cautious about scattering his strength and frequently had to curb the ambitions of his sons to go into other lines of business such as insurance.
Brown was identified with every progressive development and civic movement in Baltimore in its early days, helping to incorporate the Maryland Institute of Art, to establish a municipal water-works, to erect the nation's first monument to George Washington, and so on.
When in the last year of his life the Bank of Maryland failed suddenly, and disaster threatened the entire community, a group of merchants and bankers called upon Brown for his advice. He assured them calmly but emphatically, "No firm inherently solvent will be allowed to fail, " thus pledging himself to save the business men of Baltimore.
His death on April 3, 1834, at the age of seventy was called by newspapers, in Liverpool and London as well as in this country, the passing of one of the foremost mercantile figures in America.
Quotations: His reputation, and that of his firm everywhere, for soundness and integrity seems to have been based on a principle he often repeated in his correspondence with his son William, "It is essential for us in all our dealings not only to be fair but never to have the appearance of unfairness. "
Alexander Brown brought with him his wife, Grace Davison, and his oldest son, William, then sixteen years old, leaving his other three sons, George, John, and James, in England.