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Scots and Scots Descendant in America
Part V - Biographies
Hon. John Mackie Brown


JOHN MACKIE BROWN, late Mayor of Stamford, Conn., was born November 7, 1856, in New York City, the second son of John Brown and Eliza R. Greig. He died in Stamford, of pneumonia, December 10, 1915. His parents came to New York in 1856, where his father was a builder. In 1857, they removed to Stamford. In 1873, Mr. Browr accompanied his parents to Haddington, Scotland, and there learned the trade of plumber.

During his residence abroad he gained several medals and diplomas for models and inventions at International Expositions in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow. In 1889, after the death of his parents, Mr. Brown returned to Stamford, where through industry and ability be built up a successful contracting and plumbing business. He possessed a genial, conscientious and forceful personality and was honoured and respected by all who knew him.

Mr. Brown was elected Mayor of Stamford, November 3, 1914, by a phenomenal majority and began his term January 6, 1915. His vigorous and straightforward administration of his office oniy added to the wide circle of friends and supporters.

In many ways he left an impress upon the life of Stamford. At the first annual celebration of "Settler’s Day," May 16, 1914, he presented a flag specially designed for the city by a committee, of the Stamford Historical Society, of which he was Chairman. The ideas both for the institution of the festival and for part of the design of the flag were Mr. Brown ‘s. His funeral was one of the most largely attended in the history of Stamford; such eulogy by press, pulpit and private citizens has seldom been expressed for any public man. On May 7, 1916, an imposing tablet of marble and bronze was unveiled to his memory in the Town Hall.

He was one of the organizers and served many terms as President of the Stamford Scottish Society, and represented the Society at the Burns Centenary in Dumfries, 1896. He was a Past Noble Grand of Tyneside Lodge, I. O. O. F., Haddington, a member of Rippowam Lodge, Stamford, of the Rittenhouse Chapter, F. & A. M., a Past Regent of the Royal Arcanum, and one of its Deputy Grand Regents for Connecticut. He was a vestryman of St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church, a Sunday-School teacher for twentyfive years, and a director of the Y. M. C. A.

He is survived by two sisters, Mrs. Jane H. Ross (and family), of Haddington, Scotland, and Mrs. Mary H. Reid, of Stamford; two brothers, Robert G. Brown and Thomas G. Brown, and a niece, Georgina S. Brown, also of Stamford.


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