<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">Brown Street, dedicated in , remains one of Dayton&rsquo;s main thoroughfares. It was named after Thomas Brown, a builder who helped construct many homes and buildings around the Oregon District and later became a politician.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">Brown was born in the village of Manahawkin, N.J. on April , . His father was Capt. Samuel Brown, who served in the Revolutionary War.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">As a boy in the little New Jersey town, Brown showed a fondness for anything mechanical or mathematical. He was a carpenter-contractor, having learned that trade in his younger years in New Jersey.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">A Dayton Daily News article states that Brown was &ldquo;determined to seek his fortune in the west and the launching of that determination was shown by walking all the way from Philadelphia to Lebanon, OH.&rdquo; He worked around the village for awhile, moved to Xenia in , and then, three years later, came to Dayton to make it his permanent home.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">Shortly after arriving in Dayton, he became associated with the pioneer contractor of early days, Thomas Morrison, and under his personal direction some of the city&rsquo;s most substantial business structures were built.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">Brown bought the old Timothy Squires house high on a hill in east Dayton in . A forest and fruit trees surrounded the house, which topped a -acre plot, all within the Dayton city limits. He named the house Pleasant Hill.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">He was the first person in Dayton to use natural gas. The natural gas company had a pipe in front of his house, which he lit every evening.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">His business continued to flourish. He increased his facilities for manufacturing brick in the large brickyard on the northern portion of his -acre tract of land and had many contracts for public and private buildings.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">In , he was elected a member of the first school board in the city. After his term ended he was elected as a member of the Ohio legislature. Later he was made director of Ohio prisons and then a trustee of public works of the state of Ohio.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;">&nbsp;</p>
<p class="story-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #777777; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: #ffffff;" data-index="">That concluded his political service, and in he purchased an interest in the firm of S.N. Brown and Son, which was led by his son Samuel.</p>