Colonel Roger Brown

Who was Colonel Roger Brown?

Roger Brown was an American carpenter and soldier in the American Revolutionary War. He was the son of William and Elizabeth Conant Brown, born in Framingham, Massachusetts. In the spring of 1775, Roger, then 26, began building a house for himself on land in Concord, Massachusetts that belonged to his mother's family, the Conants. Local lore, supported by evidence found during the 1889 first renovation, tells of Roger working on the framing of the house when a call to arms came early on the morning of April 19, 1775 for the Concord skirmish of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

Roger Brown and his carpenters traded hatchets and saws for muskets and walked to Old North Bridge. He served as Corporal under Captain Gleason of the Framingham Minuteman Company. In 1776, Roger Brown joined Captain Hubbard's Concord Infantry as a sergeant indicating that he had settled into his Concord home. Over the next few years, Roger greatly increased his land holdings and prospered in the local farming and business communities. In 1779 he married Mary Hartwell from Lincoln and in 1783 their son, John, was born. Roger returned to military duty in 1786 as Captain of a company charged with the duty of suppressing "Shays' Rebellion" that followed the revolution and was discharged from his successful campaign as Colonel. He was a prominent citizen of Concord, elected as Selectman in 1796 while continuing to farm. Mary died in 1813, when they were both age 64.