Jesse Brown (1788 - bef. 1847)

Born 14 May 1788 in Baltimore, Maryland

Ancestors

Husband of Rosanna (Fryatt) Brown — married 24 Feb 1810 in Berkeley County, Virginia

Descendants

Died before 20 Apr 1847 before age 58 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Robert Wallach [send private message]

Biography

Jesse Brown was born June 1, 1788 to John and Sarah Brown in Baltimore Maryland.^[1]

Death & Legacy

Will of Jesse Brown, Oct 1841 - April 20 1847, Washington D.C.^[2]

”First, that all my debts be fully paid, as soon after my decease as convenient, with the exception of what I owe to my dear friend, Edward C Dale, Esq. of Philadelphia which may remain a charge upon the property already mortgaged to secure it, until he shall demand the payment of it.”

To wife, Roseanna Brown, in lieu of her dower, one entire third part of the rents and profits of all my estate both real and personal where ever it be situated, “excepting all of my slaves of whom, with their increase from this date I give to my wife for her natural life, then my said slaves, with their increase are to be equally divided between my 3 children, Eliza Haw wife of Henry Haw, Tillotsen Brown and Marshall Brown, except my slave, James Thomas, who shall be set free immediately upon the death of my wife”.

One Third of estate to three children aforementioned with the condition they shall not sell or alienate the tavern establishment I now own in D.C. with out the approval of both of my executors.

To grandson, George Prentiss, the only son of my deceased daughter, Maria, one thousand dollars to be put in a safe fund where it can accumulate until he is 21 years old.

Executors, wife Roseanna and Edward C Dale.

Obituary

Obituary for Jesse Brown^[3]
“Brown. On Wednesday evening the 7th instant after a long and painful illness at his residence near this city in the 79th year of his age, Jesse Brown, the well known and popular proprietor of the Indian Queen Hotel for the last 26 years. His friends are respectfully invited to attend his funeral this day at 11 1/2 o'clock from the Hotel. Goode, James M., Capital Losses: A Cultural History of Washington's Destroyed Buildings, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1979 Brown's Hotel Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street N.W., northwest corner ca. 1805 -- remodeled and enlarged 1820 and 1850 -- razed 1935 Architects: unknown (ca. 1805 building and 1820 remodeling); John Haviland, Philadelphia (1850 remodeling) From 1802 until 1933 the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street, NW, was continuously in use by a number of hotels, a record exceeded only by the Willard Hotel, eight blocks to the west. But not until hotel manager Jesse Brown, a native of Havre de Grace, Maryland, arrived in Washington in 1820 did the hotel on this corner gain national prominence.
Having managed a hotel in Hagerstown, Maryland, Brown had gained additional experience by 1817 when he took over the City Hotel (Gadsby's Tavern) in Alexandria. Brown remodeled and enlarged the old Davis Hotel on the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street, NW, in 1820, raising it to four stories and extending a wing through the rear of the block to C Street. He reopened it in 1821 as the Indian Queen Hotel (not to be confused with hotels of the same name in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Wilmington, Delaware).
Travelers could easily identify the hostelry by a long swinging sign of Pocahontas in bright colors above the entrance. Here in the early building (formed by joining Federal houses together) the "Star Spangled Banner" was sung publicly for the first time in Washington, in December 1814. Over the years a number of distinguished guests stayed in the landmark--including Abraham Lincoln when he first arrived in Washington as a young congressman in 1847. Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, and his attendants stayed here in 1851 on their tour of America to raise funds for the liberation of their country. Vice President John Tyler, after a rapid horseback ride from his Williamsburg, Virginia, plantation in April 1841, took the oath as president of the United States here a few days after President William Henry Harrison's sudden death. ..... After Jesse Brown died in 1847, the hotel was managed by his two sons, Marshall and Tillotson Brown, until they sold it in 1865. The new owners changed the name at the time to the Metropolitan Hotel, a designation kept until it was razed seventy years later.
One of the best accounts of how Jesse Brown made the hotel so popular during the four decades preceding the Civil War is related in the memoirs of Washington journalist Ben. Perley Poore, who recalled that Brown always met his incoming guests at the sidewalk and paid them every possible personal attention. A glance at the travelers as they alighted and were ushered by him into the house would enable him mentally to assign each one to a room, the advantages of which he would describe ere sending its destined occupant there under the pilotage of a colored servant. When the next meal was ready the newly arrived guest was met at the door of the dining-room by Mr. Brown, wearing a large white apron, who escorted him to a seat and then went to the head of the table, where he carved and helped the principal dish. The excellencies of this--fish or flesh or fowl--he would announce as he would invite those seated at the table to send up their plates for what he knew to be their favorite portions; and he would also invite attention to the dishes on other parts of the table, which were carved and helped by the guests who sat nearest them. On the Fourth of July, the 22d of February, and other holidays, landlord Brown would concoct foaming eggnogg, in a mammoth punch-bowl once owned by Washington, and the guests of the house were all invited to partake. The tavern-desk was behind the bar, with rows of large bells hanging by circular springs on the wall, each with a bullet-shaped tongue, which continued to vibrate for some minutes after being pulled, thus showing to which room it belonged. The barkeeper prepared the 'drinks' called for, saw that the bells were answered, received and delivered letters and cards, and answered questions by the score. He was supposed to know everybody in Washington, where they resided, and at what hour they could be seen.”

Notes

Jesse B. Brown of Alexandria, a protégé of John Gadsby (who would operate the rival National Hotel), bought the Davis Hotel in 1820, remodeled and enlarged it, then re-christened it Brown's Indian Queen Hotel. He hung a large sign out front with a "lurid" picture of Pocahontas brightly painted on it. Brown was a classic entrepreneur, styling himself "the prince of landlords." He was known for his large white apron, his officious and personal attention to every guest, and for the large decanters of brandy and whiskey that he would ensure were placed at every table setting.

Between 1817 and 1820 Jesse Brown ffrom Hagerstwown, Maryland operated Grdsby's Tavern in Alexandria - Artisans and Merhcants of Alexandria, VA 1780-1820

The following November (1800), when Congress met in the federal city for the first time, the White House was still in an unfinished condition, and accommodations for Congressmen were quite insufficient. The Indian Queen had not yet hung out its sign of the Princess Pocahontas, nor had the sun of the famous Gadsby's, dear to the Congressional soul, yet arisen. The cost of living in the federal city in these early days was not great. The rate at the Indian Queen, kept by one Jesse Brown, was one dollar and a half per day, brandy and whiskey being free,-all too free, it sometimes appeared, especially on holidays, when the landlord dispensed liberal potations of egg-nog from a huge punch-bowl that had been used at Mount Vernon.

WASHINGTON FIFTY YEARS AG O.

In those days it was no easy task to reach Washington from distant parts of the country, and the members of Congress from those localities used often to leave their homes three or four weeks before the opening of a session. A few performed the journey in their own carriages, and others rode saddle-horses, which they retained for their use during the session, and then sold. But a large majority of the Senators, Representatives, correspondents and claimants who came to Washington traveled in the stage-coaches, and there was always a great demand for seats just before the commencement of a session on all the line 3 which centered at the metropolis. f-'Z-The stage lines which ended at Washington always had fine teams of horses to run in and out of the city, and passengers arriving used to be taken at full speed up to tbe door of the hotel which they had previously indicated to their driver. There were half a dozen from which to choose, but the favorite establishment was the Indian Queen Hotel, which occupied the site of the present Metropolitan Hotel, and was designated by a large swinging sign, upon which figured Pocahontas, painted in glaring colors. The landlord, Jesse Brown, who used to come to the curb-stone to welcome the coming guest," was a native of Havre de Grace, who had served his apprenticeship to tavern-keeping at Hagcrstown and in Alexandria. A glance at the travelers, as they alighted and were ushered by him into the house, would enable him mentally to assign each one to a room, the advantages of which he would describe ere sending its destined occupant there under the pilotage of a colored servant. When the next meal was ready, the newlyarrived guest was met at the door of the dining-room by Mr. Brown, wearing a large white apron, who escorted him to a seat, and then went to the head of the table, where he carved and helped the principal dish. The excellence of this — fish, or flesh, or fowl— would announce, as he would invite those seated at the table to send up their plates for what he knew to be their favorite parts ; and he would also invite attention to the dishes on other parts of tbe table, which were carved and helped by the guests who sat nearest to them. Those at the table thus knew what was before them without reading elaborately printed bills of fare, often containing the names of a dozen dishes that have no existence except in the imagination of the caterer. Washington had then been called by an observing foreigner "the city of magnificent distances," an appellation which was well merited. There was a group of small, shabby houses around the navy yard and the marine barracks ; another cluster on tho river bank, just above the arsenal, which was to have been the business center of the metropolis ; and Pennsylvania avenue from the Capitol to Georgetown, with the streets immediately adjacent, was lined with houses, many of them with shops on the ground floor. The executive departments were located in four brick edifices on the corners of the square in the center of which was the White House. Pennsylvania avenue — the Appian Way of our republic — was graded while Jefferson was President, at a co3t of §14,000 ; he personally superintended the planting of four rows of Lombardy poplars along that portion of it between the Capitol and the White House a row along each curb-stone and two equidistant rows in the roadway, which was thus divided into three parts, like Unter der Linden at Berlin. In the winter and spring the driveway would often be full of mud-holes, some of them axle-deep, »nd some of the cross-streets would be almost impassable beds of red clay, worked by passing horses and wheels into a thick mortar. On one occasion, when Mr. Webster and a friend undertook to go to Georgetown in a hack-ney-coach to attend a dinner party, the vehicle got stuck in a mud-hole, and the driver had to carry his passengers, one at a time, to the sidewalk, where they stood until the empty carriage could be pulled out. Mr. Webster, in narrating this incident years afterwards, used to laugh over his fears that his bearer would fall beneath his weight and ruin bis dress-suit. John Randolph used to call Pennsylvania avenue " the great Serbonian bog," and descant on the dangers of a trip over it, to or from the Union Hotel at Georgetown, in the large stage with seats on the top called the "Royal George." — . ♦— * — From First to Last. The holiday issue of the Record-Union, as usual, was a monster of a paper, and was filled from first to last with review and statistical matter of an exceedingly interesting character. Its former efforts in this direction were no less than marvels of enterprise, but this last, we think, outrivals in worth all its predecessors. — [Placer Herald.

After family prayer, a few evenings since, a little Q.tincy boy asked : " Mamma, how can God here folks pray when He's . so far away ?' Before the lady could ( frame a suitable reply, a sunny-faced little miss of live summsra vehemently said : " I'll jes' bet He's dot telephones a niunirr to every place !" r - .- . '5-.f. : ■ .

Research Notes

Came to add Jesse’s will, cleaning up with info on this profile, I am not certain that this birth record belongs to this Jesse Brown, just reformatted it. More research might be needed 23:49, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Sources

1. ↑ "Maryland Births and Christenings, 1650-1995", , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HYGR-1BMM : 12 February 2020), Jesse Brown, 1788.
2. ↑ Jesse Brown in the District of Columbia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1737-1952. Probate Records (District of Columbia), 1801-1930; Author: District of Columbia. Register of Wills; Probate Place: District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/13258864?mark=7b22746f6b656e223a223842674f482b76595942694531666932364632356a65496278657a634f5069387656416b705069716650303d222c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d
3. ↑ Obituary for Jesse Brown. Congressional Cemetery. 2024. https://congressionalcemetery.org/records-search/