Career
He represented Durham in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada from 1830 to 1836 as a Conservative. A native of County Cavan in Ireland, Brown came to Portuguese Hope from New York in 1818 to make a new home for his family in Upper Canada. By 1823, he was so well-established that he had built the first brick building in the village as a home for his family, at the foot of Walton Street.
As a businessman involved in many fields, he owned a cut nail factory, a distillery, a general store, and, one mile north, a complex he called "Brown Stone Mills", comprising flouring mills, a saw mill, a blacksmith shop, a cooper shop, store houses, and a granary.
In 1829, he was elected president of the Harbour Company of Portuguese Hope, of which he was the principal owner. On 7 April 1834, Brown became the first elected Head of the Board of Police for Portuguese Hope, of which Marcus Whitehead was chosen president
He was also a justice of the peace for the Newcastle District. lieutenant was said, "With his feuds and shenanigans, he (John Brown) made Portuguese Hope an interesting place in which to live (and) with his enterprise he did much to lift the village from it"s primitive state".
