In a study of the beginnings in Cedar Rapids it has seemed to the writer that heretofore due amount of credit for his work has not been given to N. B. Brown. His was indeed a constructive genius. He early interested himself in and in many instances began businesses that gave employment to labor, the backbone of any thrifty community. His enterprises were not always successful ones, whose are? All of them, however, were busy institutions for a time, and while they were going they gave employment to many people. It seemed to be the rule to send strangers in the city seeking employment to Nick Brown if no one else had use for their services, they being told that Mr. Brown was sure to give them something to do.
And he always did as it was intimated he would do.
His manufacturing industries were many and varied. He built and operated saw and flour mills, woollen and knitting factories, at one time conducting two saw mills in the city, one on each side of the Cedar. He also at one time ran a saw mill on Indian Creek, south of town. He built a starch factory at McCloud's Run, and when this failed owing to the dismissal by his foreman of the only man who knew the secrets of the manufacture he converted the mill into a distillery, thus making a market for the corn raised in the county.
Some of his early account books are now in the possession of his son, N. E. Brown. They show page after page of names of employes in his various manufacturing enterprises.
It is scarcely possible at this date to give a proper estimate to the value of his services to the infant city. Pioneers of the energy and public spirit manifested by Mr. Brown were indeed of great benefit to the community in which they wrought, and honor and credit ought to be extended accordingly.
We are glad here to testify to the great worth of Mr. Brown along industrial lines in the pioneer days of our beautiful and prosperous Cedar Rapids.
For the first few years the settlers got along as best they could. They had few if any luxuries. Dubuque and Muscatine were the nearest markets. It required from six to fourteen days to make the trip and frequently longer when the roads were bad and when fierce storms overtook the party. Robert Ellis built three flat boats in the winter of 1841 and took a cargo of wheat to Burlington, trading this for a cargo of flour which he delivered safely at New Orleans, in July of that year. He got back during the summer but did not make any money out of the enterprise and never again cared to try the experiment. Many years later he received a settlement with the Burlington firm which was hard pressed for money and could not pay for the 4,000 bushels he had delivered. So while he did not get a fortune he perhaps came out even on this hazardous trip.
While it is true this daring enterprise failed to make Robert Ellis a wealthy man it did stir people up to the possibility of river traffic and that of course helped. The venture was talked over and over time and again, flat boats were built now and then, and a little grain shipped. Small steamers made Cedar Rapids in the early spring of the year, bringing a few groceries and notions, and taking away wheat, oats, pork, and a little corn.
Artificial dams in the river were talked of but that was as far as it went. No one was able to have any pull with the legislatures. Robert Holmes, an old Marion resident, had a grain house at Ivanhoe, and took cargoes of grain down the river in 1844, '46 and '51; Henry Thomson also ran a few flat boats on the river as far as St. Louis.