Some Notes on Fayette Brown

Negaunee's Jackson Mine was the first Marquette Range location to mine iron ore--it did so in 1847--and was a pioneer in many mining-related operations. The mine was named for Jackson, Michigan, home to the original investors. Besides financing the mine, those investors built the first northern Michigan iron forge, on the Carp River in 1849; they also built a blast furnace on the mine property around the same time. In the '60s they built this town. It's clear from the corporate history that Jackson Iron believed that ore could be economically processed in northern Michigan and shipped to market as either pig iron or a finished product. This would not prove the most successful strategy for selling Lake Superior ore, but the markets had not yet made that clear. The company survived for over half a century before selling their still-operating mine to the Cliffs, so their processing experiments can't be fairly characterized as failures.

In 1861 the owners hired Fayette Brown, a Clevelander with banking experience, as General Agent for their company. He managed the non-mining portion of the business, mainly from offices in Cleveland, where he had other interests. He masterminded the stealthy creation of this iron village across from Escanaba on the shores of Little Bay de Noc, but mostly he managed the firm's everyday business of soliciting buyers and making contracts. The ownership clearly found Brown's agency satisfactory, as they retained his services until 1888. And, of course, they named this company town after him.

Most Marquette Range mining companies were managed from Cleveland, so Brown doubtless exploited synergies which were unavailable elsewhere. He certainly found investment opportunities for himself, as he was able to supply capital permitting his son, Alexander Ephraim Brown, to found the Brown Hoisting Machinery Company, where he devised and manufactured the ship unloading machinery which dominated many ports for half of the twentieth century. Another son, H.H Brown, presided over an iron manufacturing firm which bore his name. Fayette Brown invested in many Cleveland businesses, and was widely mourned when he passed away, at the age of 87, in 1910.

Brown lived a long and successful life. The iron village which bore his name was only a minor project in a career spent near the heart of the iron, steel, and mining industries.

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Like most of my recent postings, this is the Fayette blast furnace as it looked in 1981.