Collection is open for research.
Portions of the collection were acquired with Lib. Acc. 11387.
The collection is arranged in two series:
Joseph Henry Brown was born near Wilmington, Will County, Illinois, in 1837, and came overland to Oregon with his parents in 1847. He served as an apprentice with the Oregon Statesman in Salem in the late 1850s, went to California in 1858, and after various enterprises in The Dalles, Oregon, and elsewhere, returned to the printing trade in Salem. He joined the First Oregon Cavalry in 1861 and fought in conflicts with Native people in eastern Oregon. He served as a clerk in the state Legislature and as the Salem correspondent for the Oregonian newspaper in Portland. In 1869, he married Margaret R. Graves, with whom he had four children, and around 1880, they moved to Portland. The first volume of Brown's book, "Political History of Oregon," was published in 1892, but subsequent volumes remained unpublished due to his ill health. He died in 1898.
Many of the materials in this collection were probably collected by historian Burt Brown Barker. Some of the materials are not directly related to Joseph Henry Brown and may have been collected by Barker for purposes of general research.
Original manuscript of Joseph Henry Brown's autobiography is held at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Joseph Henry Brown papers, Mss 1002, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Collection was processed by Todd Sulloway and the collection guide prepared by Geoffrey B. Wexler in 2007. Collection guide was revised in October 2023 to conform to current standard.
Papers of Joseph Henry Brown, an emigrant to Oregon and later a historian. The collection includes typescripts of an autobiography detailing Brown's overland journey and military service; correspondence, including letters from William C. McKay and Jesse Applegate; notes, drafts, and research materials used in the writing of Brown's "Political History of Oregon"; scrapbooks; and clippings. Also included is a transcription of a journal by Medorem Crawford regarding his journey from New York to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, 1842; Lawrence Kipp's report of the Walla Walla Treaty Council of 1855; and a volume that contains both records of Oregon Farmers' Union conventions from 1873-1874 and handwritten 1870s transcripts of correspondence from 1848-1849, primarily addressed to George Abernethy. The collection also contains notes relating to Oregon City history and to the Oregon Milling Company.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.
Includes history of Oregon City, history of the Oregon Milling Company, and "Rules for making a horoscope."
May have been started by Joseph H. Brown and later continued by a relative. Includes letterhead for Joseph Henry Brown.
School compositions on early Oregon history, many on the town of Elkton. The connection between these papers and the present collection is unclear.
Contains notes, some narrative, documents, copies of letters, reports, and assorted records relating to Oregon politics, 1844-1855. Much from 1844-1848 appears in volume 1 of Brown's history.
Contains notes, some narrative, documents, copies of letters, reports, and assorted records relating to Oregon politics, 1878-1882.
Contains political and other data, including vote tallies from the Oregon Legislature, documents, clippings, copies of letters and documents, apparently for use in unpublished volume of Brown's history.